Title: Family Switch
Actors: Jennifer Garner, Ed Helms, Emma Myers,
Director: McG
Writers: Victoria Strouse, Adam Sztykiel and more
Genre: Family, Holiday, Comedy
Length: 1h 46min
My Rating: 4/5
Family Switch
A family (two parents, three children, and a dog) are constantly complaining to each other. They have no idea what is going on in each other’s life and they don’t show interest in each other. One night, when they go to the planetarium, something weird happens. And the next morning they switched bodies. Mother and daughter switched bodies, Father and son switched bodies and baby and dog also switched bodies. And this is happening at the most inconvenient time because CC (daughter) has a big soccer match coming up, Jess (mother) a big presentation, Wyatt (son) a Yale interview, and Bill (father) a band performance. Will they fix what’s broken before it is too late?
Review
Okay, this movie is based on the popular movie ‘Freaky Friday’. That movie was amazing and I was a big fan of Lindsay Lohan. The thing with creating similar movies is that it either can be good or bad. For example, Hillary Duff played in one of the first of many Cinderella movies. And that was a huge success, so they made more. But those other Cinderella movies were not as good as the first one. And to be honest, I also think that this movie (Family Switch) is not as good as the Freaky Friday movie, but I have to admit I still enjoyed it.
This time not only the mother and daughter switches body, but also the father/son and baby/dog. The baby and dog switching bodies is something I did not see coming. I thought it would only be mother and daughter. It was kind of hilarious to see the baby acting as a dog and the dog acting as a baby. For example, the baby wanted to play fetch and the dog used the potty and wanted to wear diapers. They used a lot of CG for this. You could see it was fake. But it was fun.
I thought the casting was amazing. I love Jennifer Garner, but seeing Ed Helms (from The Office) and Emma Myers (from Wednesday) was pretty cool. I have to admit I had not heard of Brady Noon before. I don’t think I have seen him in a movie or series before. But he did a great job as well. I liked the cast a lot. All of the characters are interesting and there is a lot of character development.
There were some cool and hilarious moments in the movie. I thought it was funny how Bill (Ed Helms) mentioned 13 going on 30 while Jennifer Garner was the main character of that movie many years ago. Loved that reference. And that moment when CC and Wyatt are stuck in the bodies of their parents and people want them to kiss was quite funny.
This is probably one of those Christmas movies that you could watch whenever you want. Meaning, yes there was a Christmas vibe, but I think they could have done more to make it more Christmassy. Like a Christmas dinner or something. Them pretending that they did not switch bodies at a family dinner would have been so funny. It would also make it more Christmassy, because I did not get that vibe, even though there are Christmas trees and lightning. Only at the end there was a Christmas vibe with matching pj´s and love. But maybe that is just me comparing to the classic Christmas movies too much.
So yes, this was a great movie and I did enjoy it. It is a great movie to watch with your whole family around the holidays. The movie also has a great hidden message± you have no idea what someone else is going through and what their life is like. So you should stop judging others. A perfect message for the holidays. I can highly recommend this one, especially if you like ´Freaky Friday´ as well.