"So-bad-they're-good" movies are having a heyday, what with long-running podcasts like How Did This Get Made and The Flophouse. I'll enjoy the podcasts occasionally myself, but I rarely watch movies of this ilk (Cliffhanger was a worthy exception).
Last night we had the neighbors over and celebrated Christmas Eve by watching Family Switch, a potential contender for "so-bad-it's-good." The movie is a blatant rip-off of Freaky Friday--this time the dad and son switch too!--with a shoehorned Christmas theme that appears to have been added at the last minute. Freaky Friday has plenty of charm, and its own narrative logic once you accept the basic premise. Family Switch has relatively little charm, unless you find Jennifer Garner's existence charming, and no internal logic. Bizarre choices are made solely for narrative convenience, and a superfluous CGI-baby is only creepy. The resolution is so pat and perfect that by the time there's full snow in L.A. on Christmas Day you just shrug.
So is it "so-bad-it's-good"? If we'd been watching just the four of us, maybe not. But with eight of us and the Christmas spirit, I loved every stupid minute. We talked at the movie the entire time, and got overly excited at its cliché turns. We might have screamed when we saw that the fortune teller's (?) license plate read "SLAY." Clara and Katie danced during the "spontaneous" choreographed number at the teen party. Amelia and Clara took turns flopping into my lap and then racing into the living room to eat popcorn. Even Joe, a proper teenager, stayed for the entire time.
There's been numerous movies (and books, restaurants, places, etc.) in my life that weren't objectively good but were perfect for the moment, and I'll declare that this was one of them.
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