The basic plot of “17 Again” about body swapping isn’t new as we already had such movies before like “Big,” “13 Going on 30,” “Like Father Like Son,” “Vice Versa,” “Freaky Friday” (two versions) and “18 Again” starring the late George Burns. The difference is that it stars Zac Efron, the idol of the “High School Musical” generation. The movie starts with him in 1989. As Mike O’Donnell, he’s the star player of the Hayden High School basketball team and the future looks bright for him. Then he learns that his girlfriend, Scarlet (Allison Miller), is pregnant.

Cut to the present. Mike is now played by Matthew Perry of “Friends.” He has just been passed over for a promotion in his job and is about to lose his family. Scarlet (Leslie Mann), wants a divorce and he is alienated from his teenage kids Maggie (Michelle Trachtenberg) and Alex (Sterling Knight). Terribly discontented with his life, he dreams of his glory days in high school when he was 17. He moves in with his nerdy billionaire friend who’s obsessed with “Star Wars” and “Lord of the Rings,” Ned (Thomas Lennon), and lives in a house filled with toys and comic books.

In a mysterious encounter with an old school janitor that looks like Sta. Claus and a river sequence reminiscent of “It’s A Wonderful Life,” Mike transforms back into his 17-year-old self. He then goes back to high school and his two kids become his schoolmates. He realizes that life as a teenage isn’t how he remembers it. He figures into a lot of crazy situations, but he also gets to look after his son who’s full of insecurities and his daughter who has a good-for-nothing boyfriend who bullies her own brother.

It’s not difficult to suspend your disbelief for this movie as the script is cleverly written. The fantasy elements are excellent woven into the story that moves along snappily, so all in all, it’s quite entertaining. Zac Efron fans won’t be disappointed as he does a wonderful job as this cooler than cool guy who dances with cheerleaders before a basketball game. We develop genuine sympathy for his heartthrob persona and also Matthew Perry’s Mike who’s suffering from mid-life crisis and nostalgia. The scene showing Efron’s Mike dancing with his unsuspecting wife Scarlet (Leslie Mann is splendid in the role) is amusing, especially when his son comes in and asks him “Do you usually dance with all your friends’ mom?” Efron here has the same clean cut good guy appeal of Michael J. Fox in the “Back to the Future” series.

But the scene-stealer here is Thomas Lennon as the geek Ned who’s obviously suffering from arrested development with his obnoxious getups. He brazenly courts the strict school principal Jane Masterson (Melora Hardin) and the scene where they talk in elf language from “Lord of the Rings” is funny.

The material might have been done before, but Director Burt Steers succeeds in getting more mileage out of it. All the story’s elements come together towards a satisfying and uplifting feel-good resolution. We won’t be surprised if all those who are unhappy with their lives right now would sigh and ask: what if they’re also given the same chance of living one’s life all over again?

When killing humans becomes a comic sport

For serious film buffs, horror remakes are so unnecessary. But for Hollywood businessmen with no scruples (like Michael Bay, who also remade “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” in 2003), they know they can still make money by re-imagining what maybe considered as horror classics. After all, the remake of “Halloween” did so well at the tills, so what will stop them from remaking the original 1980 “Friday the 13th” which spawned no less then ten sequels.

“Friday the 13th” 2009 is the 12th edition of the movie franchise. This was released in the US on Feb. 13 itself and hit the number one in the box-office chart, meaning, they still got a lot of cash mileage from the same old formula that apparently still works wonderfully. It was made a budget of only $19 million and has since raked in $65 million so, for sure, there will be a remake of “Friday the 13th Part 2.”

At the outset, let’s say that those looking for spiritually uplifting and Oscar caliber movies should avoid this at all cost. It’s a slasher movie and it caters to a certain market, so the body count goes higher than ever before. If you’d count, there are, all in all, 13 gruesome deaths shown in the movie. And since this is basically an exploitation film featuring violence and sex, aside from the grisly killings, there are also sex scenes and nudity with nubile girls showing off their boobies.

The opening scene shows Pamela Voorhees, the mother of Jason, killing the counselors in Camp Crystal Lake for the drowning of her disabled son. But her last victim fought back and beheads her. But legend has it that Jason came back and goes on rampage up to the present. After this prologue, we see a group of five young people foray to the camp. Some of them get ecstatic to find that marijuana is being grown there. But it’s not only the weed that can be found there but also Jason, who then massacres them, except for one. This turns out to be a second prologue as the opening credits roll (after about 15 minutes) and we’re introduced to the film proper that happens a few weeks later.

We meet a new group of young people invited by their rich boy friend, Trent (Travis Van Winkle), into their family’s cabin by the lake. Also entering the frame is a biker Clay (Jared Padalecki of the “Supernatural” series and “House of Wax”), who’s looking for his sister who’s a member of the first group, Whitney (Amanda Righetti). She’s been missing for a month now, imprisoned by Jason in his underground cavern. The rich boy’s girlfriend, Jenna (Danielle Panabaker, who we remember as the daughter of Kevin Costner in “Mr. Brooks”) hits it of well with the more hunky Clay and volunteer to help him search for his missing sister.

In the original movie, Jason killed only the bad and immoral teens who do drugs and engage in wanton premarital sex. The more moral ones were spared. The new movie also makes sure that all those killed by Jason are those who go the lake for sex and drugs. This time, Jason doesn’t use an ax alone but also a bow and arrow, a spear, a screwdriver, a machete and other weapons of death. His victims are mostly deserving of their fate: throwing their trash everywhere, wearing shirts that say “F--k Christmas,” boozing, doing drugs, and making out unabashedly. They’re really asking for it so the audience does not sympathize with them. As a matter of fact, when we watched this movie, a group of teeners behind us are laughing with glee each time Jason nails a victim. For them, it’s not gruesome or horrifying. Director Marcus Nispel (“Texas Chainsaw Massacre”) turned killing humans into a comic sport. And that’s definitely more horrifying, thinking how viewers today have become so jaded with over-the-top violence.

If you’re to enjoy this movie, don’t ask any more pertinent questions like how come Jason has been going a killing spree for nearly three decades and the cops never even suspect anything about the creepy camp. Slasher films usually have plot holes that are so big you can drive a bike right through them. One thing with this new “Friday” is that it doesn’t beat around the bush and usually just go straight to the killings, not giving much time for the viewer to feel scared, suspenseful or to sympathize with the victims. The question is just: who’ll be killed next? The end shows a surprise twist that has been used in countless other flicks of this sort to indicate there will yet be another sequel. Oh, now we’re horrified already.