Review: The Switch

Grade: C+

Wally Mars and Cassie Larson have been best friends for over 6 years. One day, Cassie tells Wally that she isn’t getting any younger and has decided to have a baby. Wally isn’t sure if this is the best idea, especially given how she wants to do it. Cassie has decided to find a sperm donor, not frozen, who she will know and talk to in case any questions arise. She has an insemination party where Wally gets a little too drunk and accidentally spills the donor’s sperm in the sink and decides to replace it with his own. Cassie gets pregnant and then decides to move back to where her parents live. 7 years later, Cassie moves back to New York and introduces her son, Sebastian, to Wally. As Wally spends more and more time with him, he begins to realize that Sebastian is probably his son and tries to find a way to tell Cassie who is now dating the original donor.

The Switch is a mildly entertaining movie that has its funny moments but overall it is very cheesy and not really a great premise, in m opinion, and was hard to get through at times. The movie also couldn’t quite seem to decide what kind of comedy it wanted to be at times. Sometimes it was a serious and somewhat romantic comedy and other times they would make jokes or have gags that you would see in quirky, over the top, aimed at teenagers kind of comedy.

Jason Bateman (Extract, Hancock) plays Wally Mars. Bateman is very funny and was easily the best part of the movie. He brought his slight quirkiness and subtle sense of humor to the roll and actually helped make this movie somewhat worth watching. Jennifer Aniston (The Bounty Hunter, Marley & Me) plays Cassie Larson in the movie. Aniston does a decent job but I’ve never really found her acting all that funny or entertaining. Jeff Goldblum (Adam Resurrected, Jurassic Park) plays Wally’s best friend, Leonard. Goldblum was great in this movie and he and Bateman really played off each other well. He was a lot of fun to watch and was very funny at times. Juliette Lewis (Whip It, Catch and Release) plays Cassie’s best friend, Debbie. I usually like Juliette Lewis but something about her or her character in this movie just really rubbed me the wrong way. I didn’t think she was funny at all and most of the time she was actually pretty annoying.

The Switch is a decent movie and a decent comedy and if you have interest in it, go check it out. I would recommend maybe waiting for DVD for this one. If it wasn’t for Jason Bateman and Jeff Goldblum, this movie probably would’ve been pretty bad.