Freaky Friday

By EWAN McDONALD

(Herald rating: * * *)

There is little doubt that Disney, once the pioneer and the powerhouse of family entertainment, does not command the position that it did.

Many of the best family productions of recent times have come from Pixar, the independent production house of Toy Story (Buzz Lightyear is reportedly about to leap to infinity and beyond for the third time), Finding Nemo and A Bug's Life genius.

While Disney distributed those movies and piggybacked on their merchandising success, the companies were recently unable to reconcile their differences and divorced.

Inside the Disney studios, the originality and innovation that was Walt Disney's trademark is all but gone. For the lack of original ideas, Eisner's executives are reduced to pillaging the company's files in a string of remakes that, to be fair, have struck a chord and box-office gold with a younger generation: The Parent Trap (which also starred Lindsay Lohan, who takes the younger lead here), 101 Dalmatians, Flubber.

Here's another. The original Freaky Friday was made in 1976 with Barbara Harris and Jodie Foster taking the mother-and-daughter leads and John Astin in the male role. It was Foster's first movie after her breakthrough with Robert De Niro in Taxi Driver.

To quote another 70s hit, the song remains the same. Dr Tess Coleman (Jamie Lee Curtis) is a pop psychologist who has a new book in the shops, whose patients are always calling her cellphone, whose wedding to Ryan (Mark Harmon) is coming up this weekend ... and, talk about multi-tasking, she's raising two children from her first marriage. Anna, her daughter (Lohan), doesn't get on with her little brother, Harry (Ryan Malgarini); her English teacher, Mr Bates; and her punk band has a big audition that clashes (sorry) with the wedding rehearsal.

Oh, and Mom and Anna don't get on, mostly over things like Anna's flirtation with Jake (Chad Murray), an older boy who rides a motorbike.

After they row in a Chinese restaurant an old woman gives them fortune cookies and (well ... this is Disney) next morning Tess and Anna find they are each in the other's bodies.

Will they unscramble themselves, forgive one another and bond, before Tess' wedding? Of course. This is Disney.

All up, it's a successful update. The script, by Heather Hach and Leslie Dixon, is smart, witty and less sexist than the original. At 17, Lohan threatens to become another talent off the production line that runs from the children's TV networks to the movies produced by the parent companies of the children's TV networks.

On the DVD, Disney offers an excellent 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen transfer or low-grade pan-and-scan. Transfer and audio (Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround sound) are good. So far as extras go, Backstage Pass with Lindsay Lohan is a short promotional feature from the Disney Channel; there is one deleted scene and three alternate endings with comments from director Mark Waters; Freaky Bloopers is the predictable blooper reel; finally, there are two music videos: Lillix's What I Like About You and the Halo Friendlies' Me vs the World, plus trailers.

All up, good, family entertainment. Which may be a bit of a surprise. After all, this is Disney.



DVD, video rental March 3