A little bit It's a Wonderful Life, a little bit Back to the Future, and a fraction of Freaky Friday, 17 Again is a movie that asks the question: What would you do if you could do it all over again? But where Marty McFly must navigate worlds alongside his past and future self, Mike O'Donnell's past self straight-up replaces his present self. Where George Bailey is pummeled by the tragedy of a world in which he never existed, Mike O'Donnell is simply asked to recognize the world and people which he failed to fully embrace. And in the end, less a story about doing things over that have already been done, 17 Again is more a story about getting a second chance to do the right thing now.

When 17 Again begins, it is 1989. Mike O'Donnell (Zac Efron) is 17 years old, the king of his school, and about to play the basketball game that will determine his entire future. Jump cut to 2009. Throw in a wife, two kids, an impending divorce, a dead-end job, and a basketball career that never happened, and you've pretty much got Mike O'Donnell 20 years later (Matthew Perry). You gave up being a star basketball player for this?, the stars ask him. You chose this future instead of that?, they taunt. As Mike tells the elderly janitor he meets while staring at a picture of his former glory days, "Of course I want to live in the past; it was better there." And so he gets his wish&ellips; sort of.

One rainy ride home and Wonderful Life-esque fall off a bridge later, Mike arrives at his friend Ned's (Thomas Lennon) house only to find that his 37-year-old body has been replaced by his 17-year-old one. After engaging in a light-saber fight and eliminating the possibility that Mike is a Norse god, a vampire, or a distant cousin of Dr. Manhattan, Ned informs Mike that he has most likely been transformed by his spirit guide so that he can be set on a new path. Turn on the light bulb inside Mike's head that tells him he has finally been given the opportunity to seize the life he should have had, take back the sacrifices that really weren't worth making, and finally live for himself. Briefly wander the halls of high school grandeur and youthful promise. And quickly arrive at the realization that this journey still might not be about becoming a basketball star.

As he becomes involved in the lives of his children and his wife as someone other than their father and husband, Mike begins to see them in ways he was unable to see before. While his son Alex (Sterling Knight) led his father to believe he was a popular shoe-in for the basketball team, the young Mike discovers that Alex is instead the primary target of the school bullies, aka the high school basketball team. Within moments, the daughter he barely knew (Michelle Trachtenberg) becomes the daughter he knows too well—the girlfriend of the school bully and one of many young women too eager to give too much of her heart only to have it broken. And in some of the movie's funnier scenes, the young Mike also gets to know his wife (Leslie Mann), a woman full of love and talent who he buried behind a wall of blame and regret long ago.

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