17 Again

Since Zac Efron has the chops to make it in movies (see Hairspray and the upcoming Me and Orson Welles), it's a damn shame that 17 Again is such a lame-ass rip-off of Tom Hanks' Big. Efron plays Mike, once a high school basketball hotshot till his girlfriend, Scarlet, says she's pregnant. Then, zap! Mike is 37, played by a hangdog Matthew Perry, and settled in a job he hates, two teen kids who hate him and an impending divorce from Scarlet (Leslie Mann, doing wonders with nothing). Zap two! Mike is 17 again. Girls hit on him, even his own daughter (Michelle Trachtenberg). Eww! Then she thinks he's gay — the perfect hair, the too-tight jeans! Double eww! Director Burr Steers, of the terrific Igby Goes Down, is stuck polishing clichès. If you can't figure out what happens, you've never seen a movie. And if you haven't, please, God, don't start with this one.