Vice Versa Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		3.0
Audio		2.5
Extras		0.0
Overall		2.0

Vice Versa Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Martin Liebman October 7, 2017

It's tough to say that there was a "trend" in the late 80s featuring body-swapping movies, but there were a few, including Like Father, Like Son, Vice Versa, and to a lesser extent (and certainly the best film of the bunch) Big, which wasn't a body swapping movie in the literal sense of the term but still a picture about a boy who finds himself in a man's body. All three films deliver a similar core viewing experience as the characters struggle through their new realities, have fun with their new places in life, and come to realize that maybe being someone else, whatever perks there may be, isn't worth upsetting the essential balance of life and one's own place in and view of it. Vice Versa is actually loosely based on a book of the same name written by Thomas Anstey Guthrie, published in 1882. Certainly Director Brian Gilbert's (Not Without My Daughter) film is a massive updating of that story, taking place a century or so later and featuring a father and son who must traverse the trials and tribulations of one another's worlds in 1980s Chicago.

Marshall Seymour (Judge Reinhold) may be divorced, but he is married to his job. He's a workaholic and absentee father who is always missing his son Charlie's (Fred Savage) special events. When Marshall travels overseas with his co-worker/girlfriend Sam (Corinne Bohrer) in search of new items to import and sell at major markup, he brings back an ancient skull that transfers the father's spirit into his son's body, and vice versa. Now, Marshall finds himself inhabiting his son Charlie's body, having to return to school and deal with life as a preteen while Charlie, in Marshall's body, finds himself introduced to an entire new adult world of big business and hot romance. Can the two learn to live in their new bodies and realities, or will they come to realize that being themselves is the only way to be?

Vice Versa cannot be said to be creative with its story. The film maneuvers through some very basic plot permutations, first setting up the overworked father and the ignored son, as well as the foreign purchasing excursion that gets the ball rolling for the switcheroo that propels the movie's second and third acts. Broadly, it's the adult reliving the school years and a boy skipping much of his adolescence and the get-the-feet-wet entry-level career path and moving right into the big boy office at the company. The elder Seymour, inhabiting the younger Seymour's body, deals with bullies at school, flops about on the ice at hockey practice, and is passed an "I love you" note by a girl at school that falls into his teacher's hands. Rather than admonish him, she seems to cherish the idea that a student could be falling for her -- perhaps drawn to the "boy's" recent change in demeanor -- and winds up getting one of the film's most hearty laughs when the younger Seymour, in his father's body, hears the teacher's confession at a brief after-school conference. Vice Versa plays with a lot of little fun moments like that. None of them break new ground or really get the audience involved, but the film hits all the body-swapping highlights along the way.

The film's main draw, however, isn't necessarily the move-to-move happenings as the two people work through their new realities but rather the basic idea as it plants it in the audience. The film never actively encourages the viewer to consider a swap with another person, but it's the inevitable follow. It's certainly one of the juicer premises out there in filmdom, wondering what it might be like to keep the same mind and spirit but inhabit another body, to see the world from a different perspective and experience the different avenues opened simply by having a different face or existing at a different point on the linear line from birth to death. As the concept goes, Reinhold and Savage both embrace it as far as a PG movie allows. The elder actor, charged with playing a kid for most of the movie, has the most fun, exploring a brand new world and experiencing new sensations and engaging in new opportunities, some serious, most mischievous. Whether making work fun or going out on a grown-up date, there's an aw-shucks and awestruck charm to his role and performance that stands as the movie's main draw. Savage has the more demanding role of the two, having to deal with a mature mindset in a kid's world, to figure out that the world doesn't work in practice as it does in his head, battling the clash between mental maturity and his young boy stature. Both characters exist in a world where their mental state means they clash with the very fabric of the world around them. It's more interesting as it goes with the boy's mind in the adult's body (which is the state the superior Big solely focused on) and Vice Versa has enough fun with the basic idea to make it worth an enjoyable little watch that holds up even a few decades after its release.

Vice Versa Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Vice Versa features an MPEG-2 encoded transfer, keeping with the new soft rule of thumb for recent Mill Creek releases (Mary Reilly features an MPEG-4 AVC encode). The presentation is fairly representative of the studio's standards. It holds up rather well, certainly in need of some clean-up but otherwise it's serviceably colored and detailed. The opening title sequence reveals a barrage of debris. Such settles down after the titles, but there's still a steady, just lighter, stream of pops and speckles. The grain field is never precise, showing as occasionally clumpy but the image at least hasn't been worked over to remove it. Details are adequately sharp, whether considering basic skin and clothes or object detail such as musical instruments at a store or odds and ends around the school. Color saturation is fair. The palette finds adequate punch and vitality, though certainly nuance is never a high point. Black levels are wishy-washy and edges tend to brighten up and reveal a fairly snowy grain field. Skin tones appear more or less fine. This is by no means a top-flight Blu-ray, but for a budget release of a relatively small film that's nearly three decades old, it's hard to complain too loudly.

Vice Versa Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Vice Versa's LPCM 2.0 uncompressed soundtrack carries the film's modest sound needs well enough. The track, obviously limited to the front end, enjoys adequate width and serviceable musical clarity. The track opens up to showcase a few scattered environmental elements with relative ease, whether busy school hallways or bustling city exteriors; listeners will at least find an agreeable baseline presentation. Light reverberation filters throughout a nearly empty hockey arena midway through. Dialogue drives most of the film, and it's presented with satisfying clarity and center-imaged positioning.

Vice Versa Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

This Blu-ray release of Vice Versa contains no supplemental content.

Vice Versa Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Vice Versa doesn't do anything all that creative with its body-swapping tale, but it's a fun little entertainer, a quality time killer that boasts a couple of enjoyable and enthusiastic performances, even as the film ambles about along a linear and routine path. Mill Creek's Blu-ray is largely typical of the studio's efforts. It comes at a low price point, but that means no supplements, mid-grade video, and no multichannel audio. Recommended.