Finally 18 again

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Movie
German title Finally 18 again
Original title 18 Again!
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1988
length 97 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Paul Flaherty
script Josh Goldstein ,
Jonathan Prince
production Walter Coblenz
music Billy Goldenberg
camera Stephen M. Katz
cut Danford B. Greene
occupation

Finally 18 again is an American comedy from 1988.

action

David Watson is a shy artist at heart who wants nothing more than to be able to be with his secret crush Robin. But his shyness also means that he is often a victim of harassment because of his low self-esteem. So it is Russ, who is not only with Robin, but also the president of his student union , who humiliates him again and again and demands that David do his university work for him. His grandfather Jack Watson was once the president of this alliance, but just as long as that was, David is also away from his grandfather, because Jack is everything David would like to be - successful, happy, popular with his friends and women . David admires his old grandfather for his life. At his birthday party, he says that at his old age of 81 he only wants to experience half of what Jack was once able to experience. But Jack has only one wish at his age. He wants to be 18 again one day. And so he and David blow out the only two candles on his birthday cake .

After the party, David drives Jack to a restaurant where they eat together and talk about David's life. While David pretends that everything is fine in his life, Jack says that he should use this time of his life because it will never come back. On the way home, Jack overlooks a construction site and drives his car into a shop. After waking up in the hospital, he is surprised to find he wakes up in his grandson's body while seeing himself in a coma . At first he doesn't know what to do, so he decides to live David's life for the time being. He realizes with full joy how much strength and youth he suddenly has. But he also finds that his grandson lied when he talked about his life, because it is nowhere near as he imagined it. So Jack has to get down to business and fix everything. After he has won Robin's heart with his charm, he takes on Russ at the same time and challenges him to a competition at the championship race.

But Jack not only helps David in his life, he also recognizes new aspects of his fellow human beings. His Trophy Wife Madeline is not in love with him at all, just after his money. And in addition to David's artistic soul, he also discovers aspects of his son Arnie, whom he wrongly put in the sales department of his family business instead of promoting him to the research department, as Arnold himself wished. He also notices how much his family values ​​him, which is why he is shocked to learn that his wife has discontinued life support and that his body, in which David's soul is trapped, is dying.

After a daring rescue operation, Jack kidnaps his dying body and tries to escape from the hospital, but he races through the church window of the hospital chapel, causing another accident, which leads to Jack and David swapping bodies. Jack then immediately separates from his wife, promotes his son and sees his grandson taking part in his championship race in astonishment and how amazed and happy David receives Robin.

criticism

The film received negative reviews. The Rotten Tomatoes website counted only 2 positive out of 7 professional reviews, which corresponds to a value of 29%. However, the film received mixed reviews, because at the same time only 43% of 8,856 users rated the film positively. This in turn is confirmed by the online film archive IMDb , another platform on which normal users can submit their film reviews, because 1,637 users there gave the film an average of 5.1 out of 10 possible points. (As of May 30, 2011)

Janet Maslin was annoyed in the New York Times by the previously released body swap films like I Am You and Like Father Like Son . However, George Burns with his senior citizen humor is a welcome change (Mr. Burns is a welcome presence, and he offers amiable geriatric humor when he appears in person) .

Roger Ebert criticized in the Chicago Sun-Times that the film was enveloped in a miasma of good intentions and heartwarming feelings and that it had no rough edges or bite (The whole project seems to have been enveloped in a miasma of good intentions and heartwarming sentiments. There's no edge, no bite) . He also didn't like the fact that the movie doesn't even try to show what it would be like to be in someone else's body (The movie makes no attempt to really imagine what it would be like to inhabit another body) .

Rita Kempley criticized Schlatter's amateurish aping of Burns in the Washington Post (fresh-faced Charlie Schlatter does both body and soul, amateurishly aping Burns) . The story also offers no surprises (This is a story that has no surprises) .

The film-dienst said that finally 18 again is a film that "conjures up the spirit of optimism of the Roosevelt era and the" New Deal ", in order to then, as it were, roll up the problems of the present from behind with this moral armament. The 92-year-old comedian Burns carries the film with "his presence and his winking charm". However, it is regrettable that the film bans him after a few minutes and only shows Charlie Schlatter and so “Burns' evil, razor-sharp and frivolous comedy, which is only allowed to flash a few times, is almost entirely of the harmlessness of teenage clothes neutralized. "

In the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung it was criticized that Flaherty was continuing the tradition of “shallow high school comedies” and that he was living on the “old man in the Trojan body”. And she complained that the “drowsy, old-fashioned synchronization [...] matched the flat, colorful decals from the school world”.

production

For George Burns this was the last leading role in his 60-year film career. He played the role of 81-year-old Jack Watson at the age of 92. At the birthday party he sings his own song I Wish I Were 18 Again! , which he released as a single back in 1980. Larger parts of those lyrics were considered to be the inspiration for the story of the film.

publication

The film was released on April 8, 1988 in the US cinemas and only grossed 1.4 million US dollars on its opening weekend, making it number 11 on the box office. Overall, the film comes to a total box office income of 2.5 million US dollars, so the film can be described as an absolute flop.

The film was released in West Germany on July 28, 1988 and was seen by 258,609 viewers, making it the 63rd most successful film of the German cinema year 1988. However, it was less successful than the thematically identical film Like Father, Like Son , which was started in the same year and which was able to attract almost 100,000 more viewers to the cinemas. Although there was a VHS release in February 1989 , neither a DVD nor a BluRay release is planned to this day . (As of May 30, 2011)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Finally 18 again on rottentomatoes.com , accessed on May 30, 2011.
  2. ↑ Janet Maslin : Review / Film; George Burns in Body-Mind Switch on nytimes.com dated April 8, 1988, accessed May 30, 2011
  3. ↑ Roger Ebert: 18 Again! on suntimes.com of April 8, 1988 (English), accessed May 30, 2011
  4. ↑ Rita Kempley: '18 Again! ' on washingtonpost.com April 8, 1988, accessed May 30, 2011
  5. ↑ cf. Review in film-dienst 16/1988 (accessed via Munzinger Online )
  6. ↑ Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, September 10, 1988, p. 52
  7. ↑ Jeffery Michelson: At 92 George Burns Feels Like He Is '18 Again ' on mcall.com, April 3, 1988, accessed August 9, 2011
  8. ↑ Finally 18 again on boxofficemojo.com , accessed on May 30, 2011
  9. ↑ Finally 18 again on insidekino.de , accessed on August 9, 2011