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The Change-Up

Ryan Reynolds and Jason Bateman star in The Change–Up, from director David Dobkin, writers Jon Lucas & Scott Moore and producer Neal Moritz. The R–rated comedy takes the traditional body–switching movie, ties it up tightly and throws it off a cliff.

Growing up together, Mitch (Reynolds) and Dave (Bateman) were inseparable best friends, but as the years have passed they‘ve slowly drifted apart. While Dave is an overworked lawyer, husband and father of three, Mitch has remained a single, quasi–employed man–child who has never met a responsibility he liked. To Mitch, Dave has it all: beautiful wife Jamie (Leslie Mann), kids who adore him and a high–paying job at a prestigious law firm. To Dave, living Mitch‘s stress free life without obligation or consequence would be a dream come true.

Following a drunken night out together, Mitch and Dave‘s worlds are turned upside down when they wake up in each other‘s bodies and proceed to freak out.
20
Negative Rating
12345
SexLanguageViolenceDrugsNudityOther
0
Positive Rating
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FaithIntegrity

Dove Review

You might just think the theme of characters switching bodies has been done a lot and is a tired theme. When this movie is compared to “Freaky Friday” from several years ago, with a then still fairly innocent Lindsay Lohan and Jamie Leigh Curtis, you would be right. That film was genuinely funny but with a Disney-style of wholesome entertainment. It also received our Dove Seal. Unfortunately, there are a lot of foul-mouthed comments in this one, not to mention raunchiness. In addition, the biggest gross-out scene I have seen in a while takes place when a baby shares its load with a character in the film, in the worst possible location, his mouth. A few “eewwww” comments were heard in the theater.

It was interesting, to some extent, to see the usually more reserved Jason Bateman play a character who lets loose after the switch is made. But what is one of the film’s better moments is the scene in which a certain character has the opportunity to go to bed with another woman and realizes he can’t break his wedding vows to his wife. That is a nice touch. However, the language and raw sexual raunchiness is far removed from the family-friendly arena and therefore this one misses out on our Dove Seal.

Dove Rating Details

0
Faith

None

0
Integrity

A baby boy is seen twice banging his head repeatedly against his crib; a character swings a samurai sword in his apartment, but does not break anything; a character attempts to strangle another one when he confronts "himself" in another man's body; a man attempts to attack a female city employee but another man pulls him away; a man grabs another man by the collar; a bully pushes a girl hard to the ground in a ballet class; a man gives advice to a girl to "shank" her competitor the next time she pushes her during dance time and he gives her advice to always solve her problems with violence; a woman slaps a man she believes has spilled intimate secrets; a man pushes another man against a wall and tells him to basically grow up; a girl flips another girl on her back; a character races a Go-Kart and bangs into other drivers.

4
Sex

Tons of sexual innuendos and comments and sexual slang; a man shows up to work on a film and learns it is a "soft porno film"; sexual sounds are heard; sexual song; talk of college days when there was lots of sex; a man in a new body is tempted to have sex with a single woman; two men are told to kiss during filming a soft porn movie and they do; it is obvious a man is masturbating in one scene thought not graphic.

5
Language

GD-5; G/OMG-4; J/JC-5; F-84 (7 used sexually); Sexual Slang-2; S-21; Slang for male genitalia-4; Slang for female genitalia-2; Slang for breasts-3; A-5; D-3; H-2; Crap-1; SOB-1

2
Violence

A baby boy is seen twice banging his head repeatedly against his crib; a character swings a samurai sword in his apartment, but does not break anything; a character attempts to strangle another one when he confronts "himself" in another man's body; a man attempts to attack a female city employee but another man pulls him away; a man grabs another man by the collar; a bully pushes a girl hard to the ground in a ballet class; a man gives advice to a girl to "shank" her competitor the next time she pushes her during dance time and he gives her advice to always solve her problems with violence;
a woman slaps a man she believes has spilled intimate secrets; a man pushes another man against a wall and tells him to basically grow up; a girl flips another girl on her back; a character races a Go-Kart and bangs into other drivers.

4
Drugs

A drinking song, "Brass Monkey," is played to introduce a character; a character is seen smoking marijuana in apartment; a character's father picks up a bong and sniffs it; a character smokes marijuana while driving and when he hands it to his friend his friend throws it out of the car but the man lights up another one and smokes it; men take shots at a bar and other drinks are consumed by them and others in the bar; a character talks about his college days and how he misses the drugs; a character says he would like to "smoke weed" all day; woman mentions man coming home drunk; other scenes of drinking and smoking marijuana; a character guzzles bottle of wine; scotch and wine are consumed in other scenes.

3
Nudity

A woman is shown topless (with breasts often seen in close-up) and wearing a thong; other topless scenes and a thong scene in which a woman's bare behind is almost totally seen; shirtless men; woman seen in panties; a lot of cleavage; a man runs around nude and just covers his genitals; a man is watching porn and you catch some of what is going on; a nude baby boy is seen; a very pregnant woman's belly is seen..

2
Other

A baby's diaper is changed and excrement is seen and some of it gets on a man's face; two babies are placed in danger when they are set on kitchen counters with knives, a plugged in blender, and an exposed electrical outlet; the temptation to cheat on a spouse and what that means is shown when two men exchange bodies; the hedonism lifestyle is somewhat glorified; a couple of jump scenes.

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Reviewer
Edwin L. Carpenter
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