{"id":6775,"date":"2024-10-25T11:03:14","date_gmt":"2024-10-25T15:03:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=6775"},"modified":"2024-10-25T11:03:14","modified_gmt":"2024-10-25T15:03:14","slug":"like-father-like-son","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/10\/25\/like-father-like-son\/","title":{"rendered":"Like Father, Like Son"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Like Father, Like Son<\/strong> (1987)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 TriStar\/Comedy\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 96 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG-13 (language)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Rod Daniel\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Steve Bloom, Lorne Cameron and David Hoselton\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Miles Goodman\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Jack N. Green\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: October 2, 1987 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Dudley Moore, Kirk Cameron, Margaret Colin, Catherine Hicks, Patrick O\u2019Neal, Sean Astin, Camille Cooper, Micah Grant, Bill Morrison, Skeeter Vaughan.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $34.4M (US)<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: *<\/p>\n

\u00a0Lightning might not strike twice in the same place, but it can certainly hit its target on the second try if it misses the first time. Look at the body switch comedy Vice Versa. It succeeds in every way Like Father, Like Son<\/strong> fails. It was the first of the \u201cInvasion of the Body Switchers\u201d titles to land in theaters in fall \u201987. It\u2019s also the worst. It goes horribly wrong in so many ways, it would be simpler to write up a checklist than an actual review. But where\u2019s the fun in that?<\/p>\n

\u00a0Dudley Moore (Arthur) and Kirk Cameron (TV\u2019s Growing Pains) star as the father and son who just can\u2019t connect. Jack Hammond, a gifted surgeon vying for a promotion to chief of staff at his hospital, spends a lot of time at work. When he\u2019s home, he\u2019s usually bugging his teenage son Chris about his grades and an upcoming interview to get into medical school. The high school senior doesn\u2019t want to be a doctor, but Dad doesn\u2019t want to hear it.<\/p>\n

\u00a0It\u2019s not really important how the Hammonds come to possess a magical Native American potion called \u201cBrain Transference Serum\u201d or how Jack comes to put it in his Bloody Mary. All that\u2019s important is that Chris is the first person he looks in the eye after consuming it. BAM! Jack is now Chris and Chris is now Jack. Oh, you know how these things work!<\/p>\n

\u00a0The usual post-switch hijinks ensue. Jack\/Chris grabs Dad\u2019s gold Amex card and goes for an expensive night on the town with best friend Trigger (Astin, The Goonies). Chris\/Jack goes to school and proceeds to turn his son into a social outcast in only a few short hours. Jack\/Chris goes to the hospital, makes friends with Dad\u2019s interns and supports a colleague (Hicks, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home) who wants to the private hospital to treat patients with no insurance. Chris\/Jack botches a date with a pretty girl (Cooper, Shocker) his son likes. Jack\/Chris nearly allows himself to be seduced by the amorous wife (Colin, Three Men and a Baby) of his father\u2019s boss (O\u2019Neal, Under Siege). There\u2019s also some business about an important relay race, a class bully terrorizing Chris, Trigger\u2019s dotty uncle and a lot of Native American mumbo jumbo. Do I really need to continue?<\/p>\n

\u00a0Moore flails, stumbles and generally makes a fool of himself in a desperate attempt to recreate the magic of his brilliant comic performance in Arthur. He fails miserably. It\u2019s hard to say which point is the lowest for him. That\u2019s like asking which is more painful, root canal or tooth extraction. They both hurt. Moore figures prominently in many painful scenes in Like Father, Like Son<\/strong> like Jack\/Chris\u2019 assignation with the boss\u2019 wife that climaxes with him setting the couch on fire and an important work meeting where he tries to chew gum and smoke a cigarette at the same time. If I had to choose, it would probably be the latter. Like everything else in this wretched excuse for a comedy, it\u2019s not funny.<\/p>\n

\u00a0This is Kirk Cameron before he became a sanctimonious little s***. I\u2019m sure it was his status as a teen idol that led to him being cast opposite Moore. It certainly wasn\u2019t resemblance, chemistry or talent. Looks notwithstanding, I never understood Kirk\u2019s appeal outside of Growing Pains. He has zero acting ability. His stiff performance in Like Father, Like Son<\/strong> weighs it down like a one-ton weight. He\u2019s never funny, not even by accident. If I was casting the role, I would\u2019ve gone with Astin. He\u2019s a decent actor who could easily pass as Moore\u2019s son given their vertical limitations- i.e. they\u2019re both short. Also, he has better chemistry with Moore than Cameron does. He\u2019s the movie\u2019s only bright spot albeit the low wattage kind.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The thing that makes Vice Versa work so well is the body language of its two leads. You really believe it when Judge Reinhold and Fred Savage trade places. It\u2019s in the different ways they carry themselves before and after the switch. Reinhold becomes a big kid and Savage becomes a little adult. The change is as physical as it is mental. That\u2019s one of the main areas where Like Father, Like Son<\/strong> drops the ball. In this body-switch universe, becoming a teen means indulging in juvenile behaviors like chewing gum while making rounds, watching MTV and dancing around the house while the \u201cparent\u201d is at work while being an adult entails always acting formal and not smiling. I wasn\u2019t convinced.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Maybe it\u2019s good that Like Father, Like Son<\/strong> was first out of the gate with the Body Switcher comedies. There was no place to go but up for the others that followed. Of course, it doesn\u2019t take much to be better than this loser of a movie, a real career nadir for Moore and director Rod Daniel (Teen Wolf). His comic timing is way off here. It makes anything else he\u2019s ever done look like comic gold by comparison. Like Father, Like Son<\/strong> is like torture only more painful.\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Like Father, Like Son (1987)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 TriStar\/Comedy\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 96 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG-13 (language)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Rod Daniel\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Steve Bloom, Lorne Cameron and David Hoselton\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Miles Goodman\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Jack N. Green\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: October 2, 1987 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Dudley Moore, Kirk Cameron, Margaret Colin, Catherine Hicks, Patrick O\u2019Neal, Sean Astin, Camille Cooper, Micah Grant, Bill Morrison, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7171,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6775","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-comedies","category-this-sucks-so-bad"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Like-Father-Like-Son-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6775","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6775"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6775\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7173,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6775\/revisions\/7173"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7171"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6775"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}