Reviews are in for “Freakier Friday,” the sequel to the hit body swap comedy starring Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan over two decades since the first opened.
In the new film, Lohan’s Anna now has a daughter of her own and a soon-to-be stepdaughter. As they navigate the myriad challenges that come when two families merge, Tess (Curtis) and Anna discover that lightning might indeed strike twice.
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film is up to 80% from 64 reviews, while on Metacritic it sits at 63/100 – all in all suggesting an overall positive reception, albeit a fairly limited one.
Here’s a sampling of review quotes:
“Freakier Friday, directed by Nisha Ganatra, has defied the odds. It’s charming and genuinely sweet, and it made me both giggle and tear up. That alone is a win.” – Esther Zuckerman, Bloomberg
“Some of the other performances can be too broad, but Freakier Friday’s good-natured sweetness helps paper over some of those deficiencies.” – Tim Grierson, Screen
“There are almost endless holes you could pick in its logic and storytelling, but it gives you few reasons to want to. This Friday’s freakier, but it’s kind of… funner too.” – Olly Richards, Time Out
“Freakier Friday scores as skewed Disney family fairy tale. It just doesn’t score as rollicking Rube Goldberg personality-transplant comedy” – Owen Gleiberman, Variety
“In the end, I missed the storytelling honesty and the mother-daughter dynamics of the original. But only just.” – Kevin Maher, The Times
“The sheer force of Lohan and Curtis’ dynamic getting to return to these characters brings some appeal to Freakier Friday, but it’s only barely enough to make up for the film’s messy, overstuffed feeling.” – Sabrina Graves, io9
“The talent of tomorrow has to play second fiddle to a generation’s inability to let go of the past. And that’s something a quick body swap can’t solve.” – Clarisse Loughrey, Independent
“I think I would have preferred a shot-for-shot remake to this painfully stretched cash-grab.” – David Rooney, THR
Mark Harmon, Chad Michael Murray, Christina Vidal Mitchell, Haley Hudson, Rosalind Chao, Lucille Song and Stephen Tobolowsky return from the original, while Manny Jacinto, Julia Butters, Sophia Hammons and Maitreyi Ramakrishnan also star.
“Freakier Friday” opens in cinemas on Friday.
