Seventeen Again

This was one cool movie. The idea was not something that hadn't been visited a gazillion times before- no matter how frustrated you are with life, the choices that brought you your family are always the right one\ you can't live in the past, can't live in regrets or the present will hold nothing for you at all\blah blah- but the two actors they got to play the adult and teenage Mike O'Donnell were fantastic!

[WATCH ONLINE: Videobb, or check out the watch-movies site for more options]

Mathew Perry as the frustrated middle aged man, who lives in the past in a time when he was the most promising basketball player in his school and the most popular kid there. He dated the prettiest girl in his class and when she got pregnant, left his dreams of college and married her. He has regretted it ever since and made his family miserable by extention even though he loves them.

So now, his wife Scarlett is divorcing him and his two kids Alex and Maggie prefer not to talk to him and refuse to confide their problems in him.

The trouble is: he can't see anyone's problems but his own, keeps hurting Scarlett's feeling because in his heart he blames her for the death of he thinks he should have become and wants his son to fulfil that dreams for him- thus driving them all away!

His best friend Ned Gold- the one who always needed his protection in High School and was a geek of the first order- is now a successful video game creator and richer than midas. 

So, when the unexpected happens...

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and Mike realises that he's been gifted a second chance....

It's Ned who helps him build a new life as a teenager.

Pretending to be his father, Ned puts him in High school again and there Mike tries to realise his dreams as a basketball star again.

Everything falls perfectly into place. He still has all the talents that nearly got him a scholarship when he was seventeen, he's cool and charming, and irresistible to the girls of his class.

Unfortunately, though Mike now has all he ever wanted- a chance to play basket ball all his life and become famous!- he is no longer that kid he used to be. He sees Maggie and her friends making mistakes that teenagers do make and tries to stop them as a father would, he finds his son bullied and scared and takes him under his own wing. He also helps Alex get into the basketball team.

And then he meets Scarlett again...and in his face she sees her husband's boyhood- the boy who loved her more than he loved his dreams and Mike realises that she is the only one he could ever love and even trapped as he was in his 17 year old body, he tries to woo her back.

And I have to admit that it was this part of the movie I liked the best! Scarlett has no interest in her son's young friend, but every time she meets him, he reminds her of how her husband, Mike, used to be and what attracted her to him. Zac Efron played the boy-man brilliantly. The man in him still madly in love with his 'Scarr' and the boy fighting fair or foul to get her back!

We've all loved Matthew Perry as the sarcastic, ironic, humorous Chandler from FRIENDS, but here some how, Zac brings out traits of the man Matthew portrays as Mike in the teenager and makes him ever sweeter, more bumbling, a bigger smart-ass and the craziest boy in love!

Now, it's for you to watch and find out if Mike gets back his Scarr and if he learns his lesson.