This Friday sees the release of the new Ryan Reynolds and Jason Bateman vehicle The Change-Up, which, with its complex and original body-swap plot, joins the ranks of the films on this list. Body-swap plot devices have been frequent fodder for comedies and dramas alike, with varying degrees of success. And sexiness.
Typically, a body-swap picture involves the spiritual switching of two people, with one's personality going into another's body to somehow learn a lesson, like about respecting others, or just understanding some greater calling in life, or more often than not, getting mad laid. To put it more simply, the people switch brains and bodies and have to like, do shit and be funny.
There was a rash of father/son switcheroos in the '80s, with Like Father, Like Son leading the pack in 1987 with Kirk Cameron and Dudley Moore switching bods.
Body-swaps are different from age-changing movies like Big and 13 Going on 30. No one is switching bodies so much as they are traversing space and time, or inhabiting a whole new physical appearance. I swear to God I am not high while attempting to put these words together.
All Of Me and Face/Off are not traditional body-swap flicks, since All Of Me deals with two souls in one body, and Face/Off is about faces being swapped, and not brains and bodies. Also, the film was such a cinematic triumph by director John Woo and his cast that we wouldn't dare put it on a list as brazenly unimaginative as this.
Are you ready for the big ride baby?