Body Swapin'

When asked to help select a movie for “Movie and Wings” nite yesterday, I randomly selected the movie “Family Switch” without reading the synopsis of it. I thought I selected a random “holiday” movie, but I actually selected why might be one of my top five movie genre movies: “the Body Swap”.

Available on Netflix

This genre of film (in my head and heart) requires at least two people to switch their bodies/vessels so that they can experience what their life is like through the eyes of the other person. I think the memorable movie I saw accomplish this was the movie BIG with Tom Hanks. I’ve seen countless of these movies and believe that the last great movie to do this was the Jumanji reboot ‘Welcome to the Jungle’.

Family Switch isn’t a particularly good body swap movie… they kinda up the steaks by having 5 people and one dog all swap bodies. While its set at Christmas time it doesn’t really make that many holiday overtures. It just kinda runs down a number of traditional body swap tropes where they encounter someone magical. There’s a weird time frame that they have to all work together to reverse the body swap curse - but its never the mechanics of getting the thing to work - its as if all the characters have to realize something inside to make the magic happen.

The biggest highlight of the movie was seeing WEEZER make a cameo in the movie. They’re a backing band of sorts and it was just middle-aged-rock candy for people like myself. Kinda wanna stop myself from recommending this movie, but if you’re into this genre like I apparently am, seek it out.