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Mitch (Ryan Reynolds), foreground, and his best friend Dave (Jason Bateman) get their wishes to have each other’s lives in the comedy “The Change-Up.” |
“The Change-Up” wastes no time in establishing just how low it will go to make us laugh.
Or wish we hadn’t just purchased that candy bar.
In the middle of the night, a sleepy Dave (Jason Bateman) changes the diaper on one of his twin babies when a projectile bowel movement hits him square in the face.
Twice.
It’s a shame that “The Change-Up” has so little respect for audiences and its own story that it traffics in hit-and-miss comic vulgarity, then tries to redeem itself with sentimental scenes so forced they make our ears bleed.
“The Change-Up’ could have been so much more than director David “Wedding Crashers” Dobkin thinks it is.
Dave and Mitch (erstwhile Green Lantern, Ryan Reynolds) have been best friends since third grade. (Dave apparently forgets this and has to be reminded.)
Dope-smoking single wild man Mitch envies boring Dave’s nailed-down world as a father, husband and big-shot attorney at a large law firm. Dave envies Mitch’s freedom and never-ending supply of sexual partners.
One night while plastered, the two relieve themselves in a public wading pool lorded over by a mysterious, frowning statue. (Read more…)