.

How can a film without a single original idea possibly work. The answer, based on this evidence, is that it simply can’t.

Family Switch basically sees a mother and a daughter, and a father and a son magically switch bodies just before each of them has an important life event coming up. Yep, it’s that movie again. It even includes lines like ‘if you could just spend one day being me, then you’d know’ and ‘Mum, you just want me to be you’ and wouldn’t you know it each character gains a new understanding of the life the person they swapped with is living. Oh, and there’s a family dance number AND a group song. The location where the incident happens is LA’s iconic Griffiths Observatory because that’s only been used in forty two other movies already and the script even references several previous films to famously use the same kind of conceit with name checks for Big, Freaky Friday and it’s own derivative Freaky, 13 Going on 30 and 17 Again (although oddly not Vice Versa).

The personalities of the cast do go some way to redeeming everything but not all the way. The aforementioned 13 Going on 30’s Jennifer Garner is now the mum which just makes me feel old, although she’s game for the scatological humour. (Hang on, I inadvertently said that like it’s a good thing.) Ed Helms is actually two years younger than Garner yet feels otherwise and his type casting is highlighted in the blooper reel (of course there’s a blooper reel). As for the kids Brady Noon and Emma Myers I can only assume they signed on for this before the success of the new Teenage Mutant Turtles movie and Wednesday respectively. Oh, and those important life events each has, see if you can match these to the characters: landing a big contract and being made partner, playing in an amateur band competition, a Yale interview and a football game with a talent scout attending. (Actually, you might not get those right but it’s still not enough.)

To be fair, someone clearly looked at the script at the production stage and realised they didn’t have enough because they’ve added in Christmas, just to make it relevant for one month of the year at least.

I can’t believe my daughter suggested we watch Die Hard and I said no for the sake of seeing something new. It’s a shame we didn’t switch before we sat down to watch.