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13 Going on 30 Special Edition Customer Reviews (31 - 33 of 91 Reviews)

Fluffy Version of 'Big' Could Have Been Better With Another Director
It is a pity that with rising star like Jennifer Garner '13 Going On 30' could have been a much better film. I don't care if the film is predictable. I don't care if the film is virtually a retread of superior Tom Hanks film `Big.' No, but I was hugely disappointed by the film simply because the director - whoever he is - misses every opportunity to make the heroine more interesting, more charming, and most of all, more believable.

Jenna Rink, a slightly geeky 13-year-old girl living in the 80s, wakes up to find that she is now a 30 year-old woman living in the year of 2004. This is the meaning of the film's title, I think, but this is also the weakest part of it. Think about this. At the age of 30, Jenna finds that 17 years later she is the editor of one magazine Poise, she is friends with Madonna, and is living with a hunky popular professional hockey player. And she is living in New York City while her mentality remains that of 13 year old. And no one suspects the truths while watching Jenna suddenly start to act strangely (to them).

OK, but you might say, how about `Big'? Yes, Tom Hanks managed to live as an adult after being turned into an innocent one. But he was working for a toy maker, if I remember correctly, and that setting sounds reasonable, and his acting is so believable (and he got an Oscar nomination.) But if you ask me to believe a 30 year-old-woman can suddenly start dancing to the Michael Jackson song `Thriller' and turn a dismally bad party floor into a great success, you are asking too much from me. You may get a few laughs seeing it, but you may also feel embarrassed seeing Jennifer Garner doing a zombie dance.

I'm not complaining about her or the familiar premise of the film (of which script comes from the writer team of `What Women Want').But unlike that Mel Gibson/Helen Hunt romantic comedy, the title '13 Going On 30' is not exactly accurate. Jenna, as you see, should still remain a 13-year-old girl living in the 80s, but the same Jenna apparently has no trouble dealing with a cell phone, showing no surprise using it. But at the same time Jenna does not get the sexual nuance of her supposed boyfriend's remarks about `play the game.' I don't point out these inconsistencies one by one. In short, the film suggests she thinks like a 13-year-old girl trapped inside the body of a 30-year-old lady, but in fact she often acts like a 30-year-old woman trapped inside the body of the same age. These gaps are only damaging the film because as far as the characters go, it is the smallest details that really matter in this kind of comedy based on strange situations. Watch another body-switching film `Freaky Friday' in which everything fits in the right place and you will know what I mean.

Finally about the actors. Many seem to be praising the acting of Jennifer Garner. I beg to disagree. It is Mark Ruffalo as Jenna's long-estranged love Matt who is really the best thing in this film. He represents a mature man with sound judgment and good-natured personality, and he does it without making the film too sentimental. You immediately realize that he is the man Jenna should have loved, and you understand why she is attracted to him. The only thing I cannot understand is, how come he is attracted to Jenna, whose behaviors are either childlike or childish, and always impossible..

This film was a pleasent surprise : )
I gave this film 5 stars because, first of all, if I do not enjoy a book or a film I will not waste my time writing a review on it and giving it one star. What's the point? Why do people even do that? I found this film to be very uplifting and poignant, perhaps because I will be 25 very soon, in my mid-twenties, and can relate with getting reunited with people I haven't seen since I was 12/13, when friendships were at their best. If I was a 13 year old who magically turned 30, the first thing I would've done as well was get reunited with my childhood best friend. Mark Ruffalo does an amazing job because I fell in love with him, just like Garner's character did, and really did not want his presence to leave the screen. Not because of his physical appearance, but because he had that quality of a past life (being our pre-adolesence) that we do not want to let go of, and letting go of him would be letting go of our childhood or the times that meant the most to us. Our past. Kind of the same feeling when a loved one dies and then you never want someone else that you love out of your sight in fear that you might lose them as well. Make sence? Because that was the feeling I took away from this movie, and the tears definitely rolled. I have often had the fantasy of being reunited with childhood loves from long ago, and perhaps, just perhaps, build a beautiful future together.

charming romantic fantasy
***1/2

It's 1987 and Jenna Rink is a pubescent teen deeply unhappy with the state of her life. Unable to fit in with the "in" crowd, Jenna makes an idle wish on her 13th birthday that she could instead be a 30-year old woman already living the life of glamour and independence she feels she so richly deserves. Through some magical fluke, she achieves her wish, waking up in 2004 in the grown-up body of a successful fashion magazine editor. The problem is that she is unable to remember the seventeen years that have elapsed since Madonna was in vogue and the hip kids were still strutting their stuff to the heavy dance floor beat of Michael Jackson's Thriller. As a result, Jenna has to spend a large part of the movie trying to piece together the events that have brought her to where she is today.

"13 Going on 30" is one of those high-concept romantic comedies that succeeds or fails based on its ability to transcend the confines and restrictions of its particular gimmick. Happily, this movie is quite effective at doing just that. Although the screenplay touches on the expected conflicts Jenna has coming to terms with a world filled with unfamiliar devices such as cell phones, it also explores the more personal aspects of how a 13 year-old would deal with the grown up issues of dating and sex. In addition, Jenna also has to contend with the fact that she doesn't really much like the kind of person she's become - a conniving, status-seeking, career-drive snob - and looks for ways to turn back the clock and make amends for her actions.

Jennifer Garner sparkles as the older Jenna, and Mark Ruffalo is, as always, compelling and charming as the sensitive boyhood chum whose love for Jenna has never faded. They alone make the occasional plot hole and narrative contrivance forgivable. The film also boasts a soundtrack chock full of nifty '80's songs, every other one of which seems to feature Belinda Carlisle in the lead vocal. It's hard to argue with a movie with taste like that.

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