This is another mind/body swap film. This one involves high school sophomore students of the opposite sex. The cell phones are the device that magically causes the swap. Jack Malloy (Jacob Bertrand) is attempting to make the varsity hockey team. He is a borderline player under a lot of pressure. Ellie O'Brian (Peyton List) is in a dance group filled with young girls with Miley Cyrus ears (Disney really needs to diversify.) She is having issues with the new girl taking her spot with her BFF. After the swap, they see how tough the opposite sex has life while attempting to make their lives better.This has the Disney happy ending. The film avoided the teen curiosity one would expect from such a swap, making it safe for the whole family. A fun film with some teen drama.

As someone that has seen pretty much every gender bender movie out there I have to say that this movie really does not add anything new to the topics of gender bending or body swapping.The movie starts out simply with two pretty standard teenagers of opposite sexes. Both are involved in sports that are typical for their gender and both excel at it. The problem that is introduced is that both basically have only one parent each and both are troubled with both the parent that is gone and the parent that is left. The male character gets little love and is constantly pushed by his father while the female character is in the opposite situation. One day in school their distress about their situation reaches a point where they both wish that they were the other. Thanks to the magic of texting by phone (which both are totems from the parent they've lost) both get their wish fulfilled and swaps bodies.What follows is a few days of walking on the other side of the fence for both gender benders. They are exposed to a few stereotypical clichés such as TV-games and beauty salons. At the same time there is a time limit to swap back before they are stuck as each other for life. With all this going on there is a typical big game for both that they have to excel at.After they have both started to solve each others problems and being triumphant at their respective big game the two, with less than 45 minutes to go, wish to be themselves again but are still stuck.What follows is some insane time dilation where both teenagers have time to shower, get dressed, go home, have a heartbreaking moment with their new parent and both meet up at a bridge far away from where they live and finally return to being themselves.The filmmakers missed a big opportunity to add something new to this genre by not letting them remain swapped by throwing in some dues ex machina at the last minute.For a person interested in movies like this one there are better alternatives such as Dating The Enemy and It's A Boy Girl Thing.

Which is precisely why it is up to the IMDb reviewers to offer these commentaries.The Disney "machine" is unstoppable. It will outlive anyone reading this review right this moment, no matter how old or young you may be. I guarantee there will be another Disney flick about "body-switching" in the early 2020s and yet another in the decade just after. And so on. And so on.When your grandkids see their version of this tale, they too will think it is very coolWhich brings us back to the starting point. The "gold standard" for these stories is now, and may (possibly) always be, Freaky Friday (2003). Not only did FF have a killer script but Curtis and Lohan were arguably at, or near, the peaks of their A-list careers.Again, let's look at energy. Before writing this review, I borrowed a DVD of Freaky Friday and watched it.In the Curtis-Lohan version, the energy level in the dual performances literally explodes onto the screen within the first 9 minutes, and amazingly maintains that hi level almost right to the end. That is impressive.In The Swap, the energy starts very slow and builds. It never quite hits any of the highs of FF, but it never lags in holding interest either.List and Bertrand do a yeoman job with the material they have to work with. The script by Charlie Shahnaian and Shari Simpson is bit of letdown however.In FF, the two characters set out their respective missions off the top of the story and things escalate. In The Swap, nothing in the story seems to escalate at all, stuff just sort of happens almost randomly.So, at the end of the day, we are left with two movies that compete based on story but on little else. One is a firecracker and one is slow burner.My advice? If you have not seen Freaky Friday, see it AFTER you see The Swap. It will be more fun that way.

Going back to the original Freaky Friday from the 70s that starred Barbara Harris and Jodie Foster, Disney and other studios have done these body transference films. Absolutely no new ground was broken here with The Swap.Gymnastic champion Peyton List and young hockey prospect Jacob Bertrand occupy different worlds in the high school social strata. She's got some fierce and jealous competition from the usual mean girls you find in these teen films who always get their's. Bertrand is a young hockey player trying to measure up to his coach father and his two older hockey playing brothers.Those cellphones that fewer and fewer of us don't have, but that teens have found to be necessary like breathing in this day and age have a magic power and through them the body transference is accomplished. And they have to live with each other's lives.Both List and Bertrand are stars of Magic Kingdom TV Teen series, Bunk'd and Kirby Buckets. It's always Disney policy to give its budding teen stars TV feature film exposure. The stars are good in their roles and they are supported by a cast of Canadian players.The Swap is easy to take, but nothing new.