Freaky Friday (2003)
Directed by Mark Waters
Mother and daughter bicker over everything -- what Anna wears, whom she likes and what she wants to do when she's older. In turn, Anna detests Tess's fiancé. When a magical fortune cookie switches their personalities, they each get a peek at how the other person feels, thinks and lives.
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What critics compared Freaky Friday to
A limp reverse retread of "Big," "17 Again" not only follows in the wake of that classic 1988 Tom Hanks film, but also pales in comparison to more recent body- and age-switching comedies such as 2003's " Freaky Friday " and 2004's " 13 Going on 30 ."
The premise here is an oft-used one that clearly hasn't hurt the careers of Lindsay Lohan (Freaky Friday), Tom Hanks (Big), and Jodie Foster (the original Freaky Friday): An older person either exchanges his body with his child or through some unexplained force finds himself young again.
Tom Hanks did this about as well as it can be done in "Big," and I also liked Judge Reinhold in "Vice Versa" and of course Jamie Lee Curtis in the 2003 version of "Freaky Friday."
Garner's performance isn't a full-scale out-of-body burlesque, like Jamie Lee Curtis' in ''Freaky Friday.''
Like Jamie Lee Curtis in the recent Freaky Friday remake, she gets all the mannerisms right, and nothing about the way she acts is over-the-top or too cute.
Directed by Mark Waters ( Freaky Friday ), co-written by John Sayles, and based on a popular literary franchise, this assembly-line product has darker, more appealing human qualities than something like The Golden Compass .
Helmer Mark Waters, who previously directed House of Yes (one of my favorite films ever), Freaky Friday and Mean Girls, knows what he's doing when it comes to this target market, and the directing is solid here as well.
So it's not altogether surprising that Mark Waters' ("Freaky Friday," "Mean Girls") adaptation of "The Spiderwick Chronicles" suffers slightly from that not-so-fresh feeling.
Director Mark Waters ("Mean Girls," "Freaky Friday") and scripters John Sayles, Karey Kirkpatrick and David Berenbaum know that when it comes to scaring today's kids, the Brothers Grimm have nothing on Dr. Freud.
Mark Waters (Disney's "Freaky Friday" remake) directs; Karey Kirkpatrick, David Berenbaum, and yes, *that* John Sayles pen the untaxing screenplay; David Strathairn appears as Arthur Spiderwick mostly in equally untaxing sepia-toned flashbacks (no huffing and puffing up mountainsides for him this time out); and everyone's favorite stuffy grandmotherly British type Joan Plowright ("Widows' Peak," etc.) plays Great Aunt Lucinda, safely squirreled away at the local sanatorium on account of her obsessive culinary indulgences: salt, honey, and spaghetti sauce.
After conquering the teenage girl market with Lindsay Lohan's "Freaky Friday" and "Mean Girls," director Mark Waters turns to teenage boy fantasy (and potential franchise) with "The Spiderwick Chronicles" and proves quite adept at handling large scale special effects without overwhelming the intimacy of the story.
Thankfully, Cinderella Story has a truly worthy leading man in Murray , the cutie from Freaky Friday (which starred Lohan , natch), infusing Austin with more soulful and romantic notions than the average high school hunk.