The Switch

The Switch is a movie that I knew I would eventually end up seeing, since it is a romantic comedy. So of course being married it would only be a matter of time before we ended up renting it. The Switch gives us the story of Wally and Kassie, best friends for years, where Kassie has decided to have a baby without a man in her life. Wally does not love the idea because he is in love with Kassie, but has not yet allowed himself to admit that to himself. So after getting way too drunk and finding the sample at the insemination he can not remember what happened, and Kassie moves out of the city because that is no place to raise a son.  While all of the aspects for this seem that they would make for a great comedy, yet for me it really ended up falling flat and really fell short of where the initial concept could have gone.

Jennife Aniston plays the role of Kassie and while she has been very hit and miss lately, this endeds up being another miss for Aniston. Her character really, never goes anywhere, si i never ended up caring much for her character. When her character has no depth Aniston's acting simply goes to being the "Friends" Rachel character. Jason Bateman in the role of Wally does an okay job. i liked his character a lot more then Aniston's. The writing for his character actually seemed to have a personality and his own quirks that help the audience acutally find him likable and want things to go right for him in the end. The interesting aspect for this was I felt that the chemistry was almost non-existent between Bateman and Aniston. This lack of chemistry almost sank this whole movie. Thomas Robinson in the role of Sebastian, the son of Kassie through articial means and unbeknownst to anone else Wally's son as well, prevented this movie from beina  complete failure. I am not sure how old he is, but he is playing a six year old in the role and he hangs in there with all the other older actors. Not to mention playing the similar quirks and personality traits like that of being a hypochondriac is not easy to do, but he plays these aspects with a great ease and smoothness. The chemistry between Bateman and Robinson is really what ends up working in this movie.

The story for The Switch just ended up not working very well for me. I understand that they were trying to put a whole new twist on the girl having the guys child, and it being surprised on him that he is a father. For some reason the twist was not intriguing to me and I think they big reasoning is that Aniston's character moved out of the city becasue it was nowhere to raise only to move back into the city when he is six. I know they had to have her leave then come back for the story to work, but I think they would have put together a better way for her to leave and then come back. The story from Bateman's and works well, but it is the same story you see for the guy as he slowly comes to realize that he is in love with the female lead.

The comedy part in this romantic comedy faltered quite a bit. While with most of the moments they were trying to have these funny moments they just fell flat to me. Even when Bateman's character is drunk and the switch happens it was played for laughs, but for me it was kind of stupid, because the whole set up of having the artifical insemination party, I thought  it to be stupid and not even unrealistic in a funny way. The comedic moments that hit the mark and made me laught were the interactions between Bateman and Robinson. The part that made thes interactions was simpy seeing the quirkls of the two of them coming out and then seeing Bateman's reactions as he starts to see the similarities and the night he can't remember starts to beome clear to him.

The Switch is a movie that seems initially it could be a new twist on the romantic comedy, yet the execution of the movie just did not connect with me. while Aniston struggled in her role and Bateman was just okay this really hurt the movie because the two leads are what carry the romantic comedy. Robinson in the role of Sebastian was a hurge redeeming factor for The Switch and I would have liked an even greated use of his role in the movie. His interactions with Bateman made for the best comedic moments in the movie, I am giving The Switch two and a half buckets of popcorn out of five. this is a movie that could be funny if in the right mood, but one I would avoid most of the time.

-The Movie Man