18 Again! (1988)

The problem with movies that try to be as good as, if not better than, their predecessors is the simple fact that they can't deny their origins. That is, no matter how good your film may be, you still have to fight out from beneath the shadow of your inspiration.

Tom Hanks was no less than terrific in 1988's Big and it was directed sharply by Penny Marshall from a very good script by Gary Ross and Anne Spielberg. It was so good, in fact, that you knew it would attract carbon copies like the Kardashians attract derision.

So it was that Big attracted the Dudley Moore/Kirk Cameron generation-swap comedy Like Father Like Son (which was worse than bad), the Judge Reinhold/Fred Savage generation swap comedy Vice Versa (which was better than good) and the Jason Robards/Corey Feldman/Corey Haim generation swap comedy Dream A Little Dream (which was worse than Like Father Like Son).

And then we have our subject here, the George Burns/Charlie Schlatter generation swap comedy 18 Again! (which is...well, it's....)

I guess I have to stop and think a moment on this one. Because while it's nowhere near the movie Big was, and nowhere near the movie Dream A Little Dream was, it still isn't as good as Vice Versa or as headache-inducing as Like Father Like Son. What we have here, in essence, is a movie stuck somewhere in limbo. It has its moments, but what kind of moments are we talking about here?

I'll let you be the judge of that: Jack Watson (George Burns) is an 81 year old businessman, who is not exactly liked by his son Arnold (Tony Roberts), and who is pushing his meek grandson David (Charlie Schlatter) to excel in athletics as he did. At his birthday party, before blowing out the candles, Jack's asked to make a wish which he does - to be 18 again. While out with David, Jack and he get into a car accident and on waking up, Jack discovers that he is now in David's body and David is in his own comatose body. Jack makes the best of it an relishes his newly rediscovered energy and flexibility of youth, but he also discovers exactly how tough David has it in school with few friends and a lot to live up to, not to mention how Jack's bubbly girlfriend Madeline (Anita Morris) feels about both Jack and David, not to mention how son Arnold really feels about him.

As far as the moments themselves go, there are a lot fewer of them than you'd expect with a movie that has George Burns in the cast! George Burns!

Now here is an absolute legend in the entertainment world: from radio to stage to screen to TV and back through again; and more than a couple of awards to his credit, as a double-act (with wife Gracie) or as a single act, George could do it all. You name it: act, sing, joke, dance - even the simple effort of just saying a single line took on a triumphant tone in his gravelly, seen-it-all voice. This was George Burns, man - he could do it all!

He was in some fantastic movies, too! Titles such as Oh God!, The Sunshine Boys and Going In Style made the most of Burns' magical, effortless style and his elegant turn of a line. He even dressed up some otherwise forgettable nonsense such as Just You And Me Kid, Oh God! Book II and...yes...even Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. At least he dressed them up as best as he could.

However we're stuck with the idea that, in 18 Again!, it's okay to use George Burns in a formula schlock carbon copy effort geared towards more of a teeny-bopper audience NOT because it's a good part for him, or even because it offered George a new chance to shine. He was put in this movie to sell tickets. Get butts in the seats. Make money. Anyone looking for the George Burns we saw pick up an Oscar for parrying with Walter Matthau or reveling in a class act dramedy with Art Carney and Lee Strasberg will be sorely - even bitterly - disappointed. He IS George Burns, after all, but he is also not the center of attention in 18 Again!...he's a MacGuffin.

Alfred Hitchcock fans know what I mean: a MacGuffin s the object that sets the plot in motion. It can be anything: a lost ark, a Coke bottle thrown out of an airplane, a letter to three wives or, in this case, a comatose George Burns. Yep, after the car crash, grandson Charlie Schlatter gets Burns' spirit assimilated into him for no more special a reason than they were holding hands at the time their car crashed. Yeah. So now Charlie gets to squint his eyes, bounce around, cackle and smoke cigars and crack wise just like Burns. Well, almost - he does a Burns imitation, at least, which makes you wonder if he can also do W.C. Fields or The Cowardly Lion. Other than that, Charlie Schlatter just has that reaction in me like fingernails on a chalkboard. In this case, fingernails on a chalkboard doing a George Burns imitation.

Burns himself, however - lies in a coma in the hospital. Oh, he sometimes voice-overs Schlatter's/Burns' thoughts like a disembodied Topper, but there is precious little of Burns in a movie that should really feature Burns as the whole show. After all, why should we be stuck with an actor who would become the TV version of Ferris Bueller in a gratefully short-lived series doing a George Burns imitation when we could have George Burns himself acting like a kid?

Everybody else in this film is just filler. I'm serious - every single other person. Not one other person in this movie generates enough personality or interest to register as a character - and considering the names involved, that is a complete and utter shock. Fantastic Broadway-trained actor Tony Roberts? Filler. Leggy sexbomb Anita Morris? Filler. Inestimably cute Jennifer Runyon as Schlatter' girlfriend? Filler. Classic Oscar-winner and Burns' best friend Red Buttons? Filler. Talented character actors Bernard Fox, Miriam Flynn, Earl Boen and Hal Smith (Otis from "The Andy Griffith Show")? All filler. Pauly Shore? Overused...as filler.

Director Paul Flaherty cut his teeth writing episodes of "SCTV" and directing Billy Crystal's HBO specials. Doesn't look like any of the comedy trickled down to him as a result. It's not completely his fault, however; most of the blame lies in the script from TV writer Josh Goldstein and TV actor and future TV writer Jonathan Prince. It figures that the writers were best suited for television, however. Most of the jokes, when not dumb and predictable are just not there - and a lot of the message for this film is as forced as any given 30-minute sitcom in its last minutes, when everything is all wrapped-up in a pretty package, allowing for commercials and repackaging for syndication.

18 Again! really doesn't belong in the same class of film as Big or Vice Versa. Granted, it's not as bad as Like Father Like Son or Dream A Little Dream. But all this movie ends up being is a huge 93-minute gimmick, piling all of its dumb gags and stupid situations on George Burns' shoulders. It's completely unfair that a movie this pat and unspectacular rides on Burns' personality and then refuses to let him take center stage as he should have.

This movie ended up earning just over $2.5 million, and it would most certainly have had to have cost much more just to secure Burns in its cast. In other words, 18 Again! bombed. Big time.

Small wonder this was George Burns' acting swan song, seeing that no one (not even Burns) could have walked away from a debacle like this without some sort of embarrassment. What's the last starring role Charlie Schlatter had? Right. What was Paul Flaherty's last big film - wait, I'll answer that one: 1994's Clifford.T he Martin Short film. I've mentioned it before. Yeah...THAT ONE.

When all is said and done, you'll want to watch Tom Hanks or Judge Reinhold act childish and youthful rather than watch George Burns get shunted off to the sidelines while some kid imitates him. 18 Again! is the equivalent of going to a concert and expecting to see Paul McCartney and ending up with Pete Best.

Is that fair? Probably not; Pete Best deserves better than to be compared to a movie like 18 Again!....

As far as that goes, George Burns deserved better, too.