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18 Again! (1988)

Director: Paul Flaherty

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From Time Out Film Guide

This production-line vehicle for nonagenarian comic Burns is notable in that he plays a younger man: 81-year-old company director Jack Watson, a dictatorial and lecherous pain-in-the-ass, who makes a birthday wish to be 18 again which -no really? - comes true. Shy grandson David (Schlatter), bullied by the frat jocks, has a near-fatal car accident at the very moment Jack has a heart-attack, and bodies and souls swop partners. For two weeks, David wanders around in Jazz Age gear, fisting a cigar and cocktail, cracks vaudeville jokes, and stuns the girl of his dreams (Runyon, the usual blonde with piano-keyboard teeth) by his prowess on track and field, skills courtesy of grandpa. Meanwhile, newly humanised, Jack boots out parasitic playmate Madelyn (Morris struggling womanfully with an ugly role) and recognises the neglected talents ofson Arnold (Roberts). A ramshackle, uninspiring enterprise, full of vaguely objectionable humour and gags of pensionable age.

Author: WH

Time Out Film Guide


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