Seventeen Again

Rating: * * *

Verdict: Successful bid to increase Zac Efron's fanbase to the 12-plus female demographic.

The body swap movie has been done almost enough times to qualify as a genre - think Big, Freaky Friday or 13 Going on 30, but that doesn't scare Disney's golden boy Zac Efron whose charming performance in this teen comedy helps you get over the deja vu.

Seventeen Again kicks off in 1989, when Mike O'Donnell (Efron) decides to sacrifice his shot at a college scholarship to be with his (ohmigod!) pregnant girlfriend Scarlet.

Skipping forward 20 years, life hasn't quite turned out how Mike (now played by Matthew Perry) hoped it would when he was a basketball star at high school. In summary, he's homeless, jobless, has two teenage kids who think he's a loser, and is in the midst of a divorce.

Needless to say, Mike is nostalgic for the old days, and is miraculously given a chance to re-live his high school years when he wakes up one morning as a 17-year-old.

It's not worth pondering how this happened, especially because it includes a "spiritual guide" and "transformation magic" ... but this is where the fun begins.

With help from his best friend, high school geek turned software millionaire Ned (Thomas Lennon), Mike enrols in his old high school
and, once he's adjusted to being a teenager in today's world and at school with his kids, he assumes the role of basketball playing, morally upright, popular good guy.

Efron is in familiar territory, in a role similar to his basketball-playing Troy Bolton in the High School Musical series. But playing a middle-aged man in the body of a 17-year-old he gets to drop the cheesy teenage routine and to show his comedic skills. While Efron's mature performance ties the film together, Lennon's oddball sci-fi nerd steals scenes and provides most of the laughs.

Seventeen Again doesn't offer anything new to the formula - it feels like something dragged from the 80s into the noughties, with its jocks and geeks high school stereotypes. That said, it's a light and tolerable piece of fun that will appeal to suckers for romantic comedy, almost as much as it will to Efron's teen fanbase.

Francesca Rudkin

Cast: Zac Efron, Matthew Perry

Director: Burr Steers

Running time: 102 mins

Rating: PG (Sexual References)