13 Going On 30

(Herald rating * * )

Jennifer Garner has been destined to be a star for a long time now, at least three years (since her starring role in TV's Alias) or maybe six (since she debuted in TV's Felicity). It's been written in the ... no, not stars, magazines.

She takes a while to get on screen here, because her character Jenna Rink is initially a teenager played by Christa B. Allen, who lets the cool girls in school push her around because she's desperate to be in the in-crowd. When she throws a party they play a trick on her, which Jenna takes out on her only real friend, Matt, the overweight boy-next-door who adores her.

After this scene-setting Jenna is sprinkled with magic dust and awakes to find out that she's now played by Garner, is 30, lives in New York and edits a girlie mag called Poise. Lucy (Judy Greer), one of the girls from that unfortunate incident, is working with her.

Jenna will spend the rest of the movie trying to (a) get along with the big kids as a 13-year-old in an 30-year-old body, (b) edit the magazine, which any 13-year-old could probably do, and make up with Matt (now played by Mark Ruffalo). He's not interested because he can remember the lost 17 years and what really happened in all that time.

One for Garner's fan club, it's lippy, glossy and lip-gloss. Substance? Aaah ... no.

Nor on the DVD, which contains plenty of extras that don't say very much. The Making Of A Teen Dream is the cast and crew telling each other how wonderful they, and the film are (not); I Was A Teenage Geek, ditto, about their high school days; a ditz in a three-minute blooper reel. There are 18 deleted and extended scenes, some games, music videos and the producer's commentary.

DVD, video rental out now