Hey everyone. Capone in Chicago here.

As I settled down to watch the latest man-turns-into-a-boy film 17 AGAIN, I was fully expecting to watch in wonder and amazement at the long-overdue return to the big screen of Matthew Perry. Turns out the star of THE WHOLE NINE/TEN YARDS franchise and "Friends" is in about 10 minutes of this movie. What a colossal disappointment that man behind Chandler continues to remain underappreciated by Hollywood. The good news is that instead of Perry playing the adult version of Mike O'Donnell, a one-time high school basketball superstar with great promise, for the entire film, we get Zac Efron as the 17-year-old Mike who gets a second chance to attend high school, win the big game, and get the girl. Back in the '80s, Mike knocked up his high school sweetheart and walked away from the most important game in his life so that he could ask her to marry him. Throwing away his hopes of a basketball scholarship, Mike instead takes a job at a pharmaceutical company where he is consistently passed over for promotions. When we meet the adult Mike, he is in the middle of a divorce from wife Scarlett (Leslie Mann), and his teen kids (Sterling Knight as Alex and Michelle Trachtenberg as Maggie) can barely stand the sight of him.

After a weird encounter with a mystical janitor, Mike is turned back into his 17-year-old self but he's not sure why. He turns to his oldest friend and consummate nerdling Ned Gold (the great Thomas Lennon, last seen with his tongue down Paul Rudd's throat in I LOVE YOU, MAN), who does copious amounts of research in all of his science fiction and fantasy books to determine that Mike's transformation has occurred so that he can right some wrong in his life. Does it have to do with his kids? His soon-to-be ex-wife? His own life's disappointments? Mike sets out in the body of Zac Efron to find out.

Now I'm not a Zac Efron hater by any means, but I did find it really strange that after three rounds of playing a singing/dancing basketball star in the HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL films that he would literally open 17 AGAIN shooting hoops (shirtless) and later joining the cheerleaders bust a move to the familiar strains of "Bust A Move." Way to help people see you as something more than a Disney puppet, dude. But to Efron's credit, the guy is loaded with seemingly limitless energy, and the guy has something resembling comic timing (hell, I thought his recent gig hosting SNL was funnier than Seth Rogen's episode the week before). I'll even go so far as to say that Efron is a pretty funny guy in this film, and where the stale script lets him down, he picks up the slack and makes us care about Mike's plight. Anyone whose knee-jerk reaction is to dismiss Efron simply because he's good looking, has floppy hair, and has the largest man nipples I've ever seen is missing out on an actor I suspect will be around a very long time. Watch him in HAIRSPRAY, and maybe you'll get a sense what I'm talking about.

Director Burr Steers (Igby Goes Down, and episodes of "Weeds," "The L Word," and "Big Love") does at least one very smart thing in letting his supporting cast come to the foreground enough to keep things interesting. I was particularly amused by Lennon's sad and relentless attempts to woo high school principal Masterson, played by "The Office's" Melora Hardin. When the two finally discover what they have in common, it's a terrific melding of the minds. Pretty much every second that Lennon is on screen is better than the seconds when he's not. Leslie Mann's Scarlett is good if only because she's the only one who seems to realize that young Mike today looks exactly like young Mike from years earlier. And while she doesn't make the connection, she does find herself drawn to the young man who has become good friends with son Alex. Knight and Trachtenberg have their moments, but they kind of just take up space while far more interesting and amusing things happen around them.

Look, I'm not going to argue with anyone over whether 17 AGAIN is worth checking out. I'm about as on the fence about recommending the film as you can be. But it's becoming increasingly difficult to deny the appeal of Zac Efron any longer. I don't think I've ever used the term "star quality" in my life, but if such a thing exits, this guy has it. And it's the combination of and chemistry between him and Lennon that keeps this movie from dying a violent death. In a strange way, I stopped paying attention to the plot of the film and watched these two performers work (sometimes struggle) to keep the film interesting, with the occasional laugh thrown in. In the end, there are at least two or three other comedies I'd rather you spend your hard-earned money on, but if you've seen those films already, you could do worse than 17 AGAIN. I know that's not a resounding endorsement, but it's more of one than I thought I'd give. Take that for what its worth.

-- Capone
capone@aintitcoolmail.com