Like an expert used-car saleswoman, Jennifer Garner (TV's "Alias" manages to sell "13 Going on 30," a comedy that borrows more than a little from Tom Hanks' "Big."
It's derivative going on rip-off.
It is familiar territory as a disenchanted teen wishes to be older to avoid the struggles and heartache of adolescence and wakes up the next morning as an adult.
The film opens in 1987, (I was hooked when they started playing a Rick Springfield retro classic) and young Jenna Rink (Christa B. Allen) is an outcast in school as she tries to fit in with the band of snobby girls by doing their homework.
She can't, of course, and when her next door neighbor and best friend, Matty (Justin Burke), gives her some magic wishing dust for her birthday, she wishes she could be (as she read in a magazine) "30, Flirty and Thriving."
The age of 30, to me, seemed to be an interesting choice. From all of my faithful years of watching "Ally McBeal," I learned the age of 30 was supposedly the death knell in a woman's life if she has yet to marry.
"You're more likely to be shot by an assassin than to get married after 30," Ally used to say.
I always thought Ally was overreacting, (she always was such a drama queen), and young Jenna seems to think it is the quintessential age.
She proves herself right as she wakes up as the wildly attractive Jennifer Garner with a killer body she knows little about and a naked hockey player taking a shower in her apartment.
The film's main claim to not being a total rip-off of "Big" is that while Jenna has aged 17 years overnight, so has everyone else.
She must not only figure out why she is now a 13-year-old in a 30-year-old body, but what has transpired in her life during the last nearly two decades.
She finds she is now best friends with the girl she desperately wanted to fit in with in school and is an editor of the magazine she read when she was young.
Her anal-retentive boss is played by the hilarious Andy Serkis (recently digitized as Gollum in the "Lord of the Rings" films).
Jenna, still freaking out over her drastic change, finds her old friend, Matty (Mark Ruffalo) to uncover some of the mystery of her past. As it turns out, she and Matty haven't spoken in years due to a nasty falling out, and he is inexplicably accepting of her claim that she can't remember the last 17 years.
As she continues to uncover secrets about herself, she finds that she has become quite the evil shrew.
The film is wholly predictable, and one can see the schmaltzy ending coming before the opening credits.
But the film's biggest problem is in consistency.
Garner's character goes from being a wide-eyed, immature girl to being a savvy businesswoman with a plan to save her struggling magazine.
She eats a Fruit Roll-up off of her finger in a business meeting and then gives a new mission statement presentation to the board of editors.
She grosses out when her hockey player boyfriend strips for her, or when her friend suggests she hit on a grown man in a bar, but then falls for the grown version of Matty.
It's too cute to merit too many complaints, though.
That's almost entirely due to Garner, who has put her "Alias"/ "Daredevil" butt-kicking persona aside and proves she has good screen presence and solid comic timing. She's delightfully funny and adorable and manages to sell this movie almost single-handedly.
If anything, this slightly worn comedy has solidified her as a viable movie star.
Eppler's rating - 2 1/2 stars
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