Review: ‘Freakier Friday' offers plenty of nostalgia, but no new magic

San Francisco Chronicle​

a day ago

Two decades after its predecessor, Disney's 'Freakier Friday' plunges back into 'legacy sequel' waters — where nostalgia keeps storylines afloat and originality barely treads water.
Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan reprise their mother-daughter duo entrenched in body-swap chaos, and the formula remains largely intact. But there's a new ripple. Whereas 2003's 'Freaky Friday' (itself a remake of a 1976 Jodie Foster film based on a novel by Mary Rodgers) confined the swap to two characters, 'Freakier Friday' tosses two others into the magical mix with Anna (Lohan) and Tess (Curtis): Anna's teenage daughter Harper (Julia Butters) and Harper's soon-to-be stepsister Lily (Sophia Hammons of Disney Channel's 'Under Wraps' films).
At this rate, one fully expects 'Freakiest Friday' in 2047 to feature half the cast of the Disney backlot.
The story scaffolding is boilerplate Disney Channel original movie: Tess is reinventing herself as a podcaster while Anna is juggling single motherhood with her work managing musicians. Along comes debonair single dad Eric (Manny Jacinto). Sparks fly and, one montage later, a wedding date is set. The only problem is his daughter Lily is Harper's high school nemesis.
Cue the mystical shenanigans, the wacky misunderstandings and the inevitable life lessons about empathy and family.
As before, the chief draw is Curtis, who once again earns big laughs from the absurdity of a teenager stuck inside a 60-something body. It's a role that showcases her gift for physical comedy, though the script's overuse of crow's-feet and incontinence jokes starts to feel tired.
Lohan, for her part, reinhabits Anna with a welcome spark, a reminder of the charisma that made her a star 20 years ago. If this ends up being the film that gets her back into Hollywood's good graces for more fulfilling roles, all the better.
Butters and Hammons, meanwhile, are both more than capable of holding their own opposite the film's marquee stars.
Butters, so good at scene-stealing in 'Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood,' brings a likable mix of snark and vulnerability to Harper, while Hammons leans into Lily's prim-and-proper veneer without making her a total caricature. Their performances are solid; the issue lies in the script that charts their arcs with such predictability, there's little room for surprise.
This is the kind of movie where your mind starts to wander and you begin questioning the rules of the magic. Why does Lily no longer have a British accent after she switches bodies with Tess? Do accents stay with the body or the mind?
Thankfully there's Jacinto, who sent plenty of hearts aflutter as a Sith baddie in last year's 'Star Wars: The Acolyte,' to lure you back in. He radiates so much warmth and charm here in the 'patient single dad' role it's hard not to see him as a made-to-order romantic lead. If there's any justice, 'Freakier Friday' will serve as a calling card that lands him front and center in a proper rom-com soon.
TV veteran Nisha Ganatra directs the proceedings with a bright, mid-2000s Disney aesthetic, replete with a steady parade of cameos designed to get millennials pointing at the screen. (Hey, it's Chad Michael Murray, back as Anna's ex, Jake! And look, Mark Harmon is back as Tess's husband Ryan, 21 seasons of 'NCIS' later!)
One supposes that if they really wanted to get freaky, they could have roped in Jodie Foster from the 1976 original, which technically exists in the same universe as these films (it's true!).