It happens every few years: Hollywood plucks some It kid and thrusts him/her into a formulaic body-swap movie. They switch mortal shells with some old actor, and heartfelt hilarity ensues. This time, it's silky smooth HSM alum
Zac Efron body-swappin' it up with
Matthew Perry in 17 Again.
Predictability is what makes these body-swap flicks such a guilty pleasure. Like that initial switcheroo scene—when the switchee looks in the mirror, screams, looks down at pants, screams, falls over a piece of furniture. LOLzers.
Here are our Top 9 fave body-swap movies, with No. 10 left up to you:
1. Like Father Like Son: Believe it: Kirk Cameron was the Zefron of 1987, and this is the perfect body-swap flick. Idiot teenager, check! Overly serious control-freak parent (Dudley Moore), check! Life lessons about walking a mile in somebody else's shoes, check! Swooning over heartthrob extending his acting range, er, check!
2. Big: Some would say this is the Citizen Kane of body-swap movies, but we're calling out Tom Hanks for totally overdoing it with the naïveté of a 12-year-old boy. Still, Big's head and shoulders above its contemporary switcheroo competitors.
3. All of Me: Steve Martin becomes a wild and crazy guy when the soul of Lily Tomlin is inadvertently transferred into him and takes over half his body, thereby giving all of us two comic geniuses for the price of one.
4. Being John Malkovich: John Cusack using John Malkovich like a puppet! Cameron Diaz looking ugly! Surrealism and dread and mainstream success! Body-swapping becomes high art, if only for a moment, and we're glad some dumb studio type didn't turn this into Being George Clooney.
5. Freaky Friday: The 2003 remix blesses us with Lindsay Lohan on the cusp of her precocious freckle-faced adolescence—remember that? And this is easily Jamie Lee Curtis' best role beyond those "yogurt that makes you poop" commercials. Fun for all.
6. 13 Going on 30: Jennifer Garner skips the mortification of bad '80s hair, getting her braces stuck in some other kid's braces and other rites of passage when she wakes up to a perfect apartment, career and star-athlete boyfriend at 30. We'd like to wake up there, too.
7. Oh Heavenly Dog!: Dead detective Chevy Chase reincarnated as Benji, cracking wise and working a murder case—what more do you need? Apparently Chase has never seen this movie and considers it his worst. Feh, what does he know?
8. Dream a Little Dream: This Corey-on-Corey romp through the 'burbs—with mystical overtones and multiple body-swaps—may have been what sent both Haim and Feldman into rehab.
9. The Hot Chick: Smelly loser Rob Schneider swaps bodies with a smokin' high school mean girl. And while this may not sound appetizing, it's somehow just the right amount of dumb fun and Anna Faris to cure any hangover.
