17 Again (DVD)

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"I wish I was eighteen again,
And going where I've never been.
But old folks and old oaks
Standing tall just pretend,
I wish I was eighteen again."
--Sonny Throckmorton

Pretend that seventeen and eighteen years old are close enough and that the old Jerry Lee Lewis/George Burns/Slim Whitman song didn't happen. Pretend that you never saw or never heard of either of the "Freaky Friday" flicks, "Big" with Tom Hanks, or any other growing-younger or personality-switch movies. If you can do that, you'll have a pretty good chance of liking the 2009 fantasy comedy "17 Again." It's harmless enough, if rather predictable and safe.

The story begins in 1989. Mike McDonnell (Zac Efron) is a senior in high school, the star player on his school's basketball team, expecting to get a scholarship to a major university, and dating Scarlett (Allison Miller), the cutest girl in town. Life is good. Then, just before the big game, with college scouts in the audience, Scarlett tells Mike that she's pregnant, and his whole life changes.

Flash forward twenty years. Mike (played as an adult by Matthew Perry) never got the scholarship and never went to college, his wife Scarlett (played as an adult by Leslie Mann) has just kicked him out of the house, his two teenage kids want nothing to do with him, and his boss has passed him over for a promotion. Life is not so good. Where did he go wrong? Ah, he thinks, if only he could go back and do it all over again.

Here we enter "It's a Wonderful Life" territory, complete with a magical school janitor (Brian Doyle-Murray), a "spirit guide," to replace Clarence the angel. And the next thing we know, Mike is seventeen again.

The thing is, it's not 1989. It's still 2009. It's just that Mike is seventeen, with a thirty-seven-year-old's mind and memory. What to do? He enlists the aid of his best friend, whom he's known since childhood, Ned Gold (Thomas Lennon), a nerd who became super rich in the software business. Ned's still a dork, living alone, playing video games, and immersing himself in everything fantastical. He's a hard-core "Star Wars" and "Lord of the Rings" fan, naturally, and everything in his house reflects it. Frankly, he's the best thing in the movie; exaggerated, to be sure, but so eccentrically overstated that he's quite often more interesting than the main character.

Nobody recognizes the teenage Mike as the older Mike, since that would be crazy. However, because Ned understands about supernatural stuff, he accepts that Mike has become suddenly younger and agrees to pretend being Mike's dad; together they enroll Mike in high school, where Ned immediately falls for the straightlaced, unattached principal, Jane Masterson (Melora Hardin). The highlight of the film comes during a restaurant scene between Ned and Jane, a special, enchanting moment for which we can only have wished for more.

Now, what do you mean, Does Mike learn a lesson and set his life straight? It's a Hollywood comedy, isn't it? The movie may be from New Line, but Disney could have made it. With director Burr Steers ("Igby Goes Down") at the helm, Zac Efron ("Hollywood Musical," "Hairspray") in the lead, and actor Thomas Lennon in support, the film manages to make more of its flimsy premise than one might suppose possible.