Not Another Teen Movie

Updating the body-swap genre for a teenage audience, 17 Again stars young heartthrob Zac Efron as a failed sports star who is given another chance at life.

Forty-something Mike O’Donnell (Matthew Perry) can only be described as a loser. Unemployed and on the brink of a divorce, he dreams of the days when he excelled on the school basketball team and dated the prettiest girl in the class, little knowing her pregnancy would mean the end of his dreams of sports-stardom and a prestigious college scholarship. Then one day during a nostalgia trip to his old school he meets a mysterious, twinkly-eyed caretaker and falls into a Twilight Zone vortex to emerge as a muscle-bound Zac Efron, aka Mike aged 17. His body may have regressed 20 years, but his surroundings are very much as they left him: same wife, same kids, same problems.

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Based on Louise Rennison’s popular series of teen novels, Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging is a Bridget Jones-style coming-of-age comedy which follows a group of 14-year-olds as they attempt to escape the shackles of their snooping parents and move into the more exciting world of boys, bras and parties. Viewers who’ve endured teen gross-out comedies such as American Pie will find this Brit-flick from Gurinder Chadha (Bend it Like Beckham) refreshingly gentle. There’s no swearing and no mention of drugs, no-one has sex and there are no unwanted pregnancies.

Set in the seaside town of Eastbourne, the story centres around Georgia Nicholson (Georgia Groome) and her circle of giggly, gawkish friends. Her chief aims in life are to secure a fit boyfriend and persuade her parents to throw her the best 15th birthday bash EVER at the local nightclub. Her biggest gripes are her embarrassing, old fashioned parents (Alan Davies and Karen Taylor) and her freakish little sister Libby (Eva Drew), who thinks she’s a cat. When two “sex-gods” called Robbie (Aaron Johnson) and Tom (Sean Bourke) join their school, Georgia and her best friend Jas (Eleanor Tomlinson) are determined to bag them for themselves. Trouble is, the slutty and popular Lindsay (Kimberley Nixon), who wears a padded bra and unbuttons her shirt as low as school uniform rules will allow, has got there first.

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The TV sitcom that shot 16-year-old Miley Cyrus to megastardom has now spawned a move of the same name. As well as being a guaranteed cash cow for Disney, the move also heralds a comeback for Miley’s dad Billy Ray Cyrus, who became a one-hit-wonder with the tremendously irritating ‘Achy Breaky Heart’.

For those not familiar with Disney’s teenage phenomenon, Hannah Montana the pop star alter ego of Miley Stewart, who lives a double life thanks to one blonde wig. It’s no wonder that she commands such an impassioned tween following: here bere we see her living the dream of being both an ordinary teenager and massively successful pop star.

A predictable plot sees Miley get too big for her boots and being whisked off to the country by her Billy Ray, who plays her onscreen father, where she rediscovers the simple life and renounces the consumerism of Beverly Hills. But the folks back in Tennessee have no idea that Miley has become world famous as Hannah Montana, so she has to keep switching identities.

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This Academy Award winning teen comedy drama blindsided people when it appeared, apparently from out of nowhere last year, winning over US audiences with its unconventional handling of teenage pregnancy, sharp comic dialogue, and gentle-yet-deliberate pacing.

The titular heroine, 16 year old high school attendee Juno MacGuff, discovers she is pregnant by her longtime friend, boy-next-door type Paulie, and initially intends to have an abortion. After deciding against, she then begins making arrangements for a closed adoption.

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