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Following the omnipresence of High School Musical in the
mainstream pop cultural reference it is time for the leads to go their
separate ways. The most obvious star Zac Efron gets his first
star vehicle following his supporting turn in ‘Hairspray’, and this
solo vehicle works as it works to his strengths - charm, fun nature and
light-heartedness. The film tells the story of Mike who played by Matthew Perry is a touching 40-year-old who is in a dead-end job with no chance of promotion, a failed marriage and two kids who do not like him. Mike longs for the days of his high school when in a pre-credit sequence we learn he missed the big game as his girlfriend told him she was pregnant - had he played the game, the college scholarship would have followed. After meeting a mystical janitor, Mike is hurtled back to his 17 year old self in the present day; where he goes to school and relives it all with another chance - to get the scholarhsip, to win his wife’s heart again. The film is clean cut and carries a strong abstinence storyline and considering that it follows the ‘spirit guide on road of transformation’ - Efron is being transformed himself into a matinee idol; funny, takes his shirt off, talented (watch out for his acting with a basketball in the canteen), dances, smiles, takes his shirt off again and then change into Chandler from ‘Friends’ all in one film. Efron goes it alone and comes out with flying colours - a determination by all parties to make the most out of this film and its generic storyline. He his helped in no small part by a strong supporting cast especially Leslie Mann as Mike’s wife and Thomas Lennon who plays Ned, a billionaire who ‘invented the software to download music over the internet, and the software to stop people downloading music off the internet’. Ned provides a lot of the comedy in the second half of the film with his love story with the prinicpal of Mike’s school who turns out to be a closet temptress to fulfil Ned’s geekdom desires. The comedy does not feel forced or rushed though there are moments that do drag (mostly involving Mike’s daughter’s dating rituals and she coming on to him) prompting unnecessary homophobic content; but the chemistry between Efron and Lennon is winning and might even warrant a second viewing...again.
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