“Grandpa, I just want to say that when I’m your age, I hope I’m half as lively as you are.”

Justin’s rating: I think if I finish reviewing every single body swap movie in existence, it will trigger armageddon. Be warned.

Justin’s review: It’s a true wonder that we as a society escaped the ’80s with our sanity intact, what with everyone switching bodies whenever someone sneezed, bumped into each other, shared an elevator, or ate a fortune cookie. I myself spent a week trapped in the confines of Scottish Terrier when it got too friendly with my leg.

Even aging one-note vaudeville stars weren’t immune. A cantankerous George Burns found the secret to eternal youth when he body hopped into a teenager back in the late ’80s. In 18 Again!, Burns plays Jack, a business mogul who’s a complete jerk to his son and collegiate grandson David (Charlie Schlatter, TV’s Ferris Bueller) while romancing women half his age.

On his 81st birthday, Jack gets into a car crash alongside David, and pop-goes-the-weasel, Jack’s in David’s body, and David is, well, in a coma. And also in Jack’s body. Let’s face it, David really gets the short end of the stick in this movie.*

So we follow Jack-as-David as he forges a path through his grandson’s life and enjoys a vacation as a young person again. I’d be happier for him if he wasn’t such a tool in the earlier scenes, and I’d be happier with him if George Burns didn’t keep up an inner monologue to justify his paycheck.

Jack navigates David’s body through frat pledging, confronting the local bully (Anthony Starke, Return of the Killer Tomatoes), making inroads with cutie Robin (Jennifer Runyon, Carnosaur), and being best friends with Pauly Shore (Son in Law). Yeah, Pauly Shore is in this — I was just as surprised as you — but this is well before his Weasel routine was in place so he’s relatively normal. Relatively.

Jack also learns in a roundabout way about the pain he’s been causing his family, but honestly, that seemed secondary to a reformed old man living it up as a college kid.

George Burns was very much before my time, and in fact, he was 92 when making this movie. I guess it’s impressive that he was still headlining movies at that age, but I don’t find his constantly quipping schtick that charming.

Schlatter is the real star anyway, taking up dual roles with aplomb. He’s beams with charisma and is highly expressive, doing a passable imitation of his co-star. It’s too bad that movies didn’t work out for him, because he deserved to head up some big teen hits instead of drifting over into TV land.

Not the best and not the worst of the body swap genre, 18 Again is worth seeing solely for Charlie Schlatter and a glimpse of what might’ve been. It’s a charming if not overly funny flick with a dash of ’80s college adventures.

*The coma thing seems like an easy out considering that there was no way George Burns would be able to act anything like an 18-year-old. Still, it feels like we got cheated out of half a movie.

Intermission!

• “Give me the paint… now the can.”
• The “18” in 18 Again’s title font is hilariously small
• Yeah just hit on your student in class in full view of everyone. That’s a lawsuit in the making.
• Guess there were no fouls or anything for pushing a track runner down during a race in 1988
• So. Many. Bow. Ties.
• Oh please can the older people stop singing
• And narrating, while we’re at it
• David bending down like an old man and then realizing he can do it much better, good little moment
• “…the same junior jockstrap.” “WHAT.”
• Coach loves to hike up his pants something fierce
• Everybody was bluffing, apparently
• Toga parties are so ’70s, not ’80s
• “I thought you said you didn’t want to dance!”
• About time we had a hospital rampage
• “They pulled the plug.” “I’ve got good batteries.”
• Anita Morris, Jack’s younger wife in the movie, died in 1994 at the age of 50. George Burns died in 1996 at the age of 100. Both of these facts are wild to me.