Customer Reviews

Like Father Like Son

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This hillarious comedy,about a teenager(Kirk Cameron) who switches bodies with his surgeon father(Dudley Moore),isn't just a hip,80's romp,but it has very touching moments as well! Also features Patty Duke's son,Sean Austin,as well as a great 80's soundtrack.Kirk Cameron really is funny! And Dudley Moore is great! I have loved this film since it was released,and even though some critics had mixed reviews,it made $40 million at the box-office,and still holds up as a great slapstick comedy!

YES!! Thank you Columbia/TriStar for putting this movie on DVD! I love this movie its one of my all time favorites. Classic 80's movie. Dudley Moore "Dr. Jack Hammond"is wonderful and very funny as the father, Kirk Cameron Shines as "Chris Hammond" his teenage son. They switch bodies when friend Sean Astin "Trigger" from"Lord of the Rings" brings it over to the brain-transference serum. Dudley Moore goes wild in his sons body and hits the town with Sean Astin while Kirk Cameron in his dads body goes to the hospital and makes arounds with his dads interns. This movie I highly recommend only for teenagers and older, not for younger kids because of some of the language and adult seens. Please don't confuse this movie with that rip off "Freaky Friday" thats Disney stuff is for kids. This movie is underrated and full of laughes, Theres no special features on the DVD But it has been Remastered in High Definition! The picture quality is Awesome! Crystal Clear! really looks nice alot better than the grainy VHS version. Columbia/TriStar you guys ROCK! Great job on the DVD

Alright. Granted, this is not an over the boards smash hit. But in all honesty, this is better and funnier than a lot of overrated so called comedies out there today. If you have found your way to this webpage, you probably already know the basic story. Cameron and Moore (son and father) through an accident of Astin end up in each other's bodies. (I will grant that this seems overly simplistic.) But there is something humorous about seeing the mature and responsible heart surgeon being acted by Cameron, and the hormone driven, and somewhat troubled teenager being played by Moore. (As well as them trying to find their way through people the true owner of the body knows.) If we are willing to accept that this isn't a Shakespeare comedy, we may find ourselves pleasantly surprised at the humor and comedy it does offer. And like well drawn comedy, there is a moral basis. (Moore and Cameron through their short and annoying journey do learn about each other.) One thing I must say about this movie is that it DOES NOT rely on excess obscenities or slapstick. Nor does it rely on someone getting into fights every 2 mintues. Pick up this movie. It's worth a few dollars.

The stars I gave this film are for sentimental reasons. If you were a teenaged girl growing up in the late 1980s, this was on the must-see list. When I think that I dragged my parents to catch this on the big screen...it's no wonder I'm an only child! The performances here are predicatable. For those loving the "Lord of the Rings" series, note that Sean Astin plays a goofball friend of Kirk Cameron. Watch this only if you wish to travel back in time & remember simpler days.

Dr. Jack Hammond(the late Dudley Moore) is a hospital worker who ends up,surgically,switching personalities with his high school son(Kirk Cameron). Now,Jack is in high school and his kid is working in the hospital. How hilarious is that? At the time of filming,Cameron was the star of the ABC sitcom Growing Pains and a teen idol as well. Cameron didn't last very long in Hollywood. I guess his fans loved him much better on GP.

I remember this movie from the 80's. I remember I really liked the soundtrack, although I have never been able to find it. So I settled for the movie.

The movie's premise doesn't work - not at all, not even a little, not even part of the time - and that means everyone in the movie looks awkward and silly all of the time. This plays less like a movie than like a penalty for the losers on a game show.

The film stars Dudley Moore and Kirk Cameron as father and son. Moore is a surgeon, Cameron is a high school student. One day Moore unknowingly puts a few drops of a rare Indian "mind transference" potion into his Bloody Mary, and he and his son exchange their conscious minds. The surgeon is inside the teenage body and the teenager is inside the surgeon, although Moore's body still speaks with a British accent and Cameron's body still sounds like a Southern California kid. If that seems like a slight inconsistency, it's mere chaff in the wind compared with the really yawning logical gap that the movie tries to ignore. See if you can follow this.

When you take the magic potion and look at another person, you exchange consciousness with that other person. The characters know this at the time. Therefore, if they don't like being in each other's bodies, why don't they just have Cameron's body drink the liquid and look at Moore's body? Then there would be a second transfer of minds, and the movie would be over, and the lights would go on, and we could get up and leave, and our lifetimes would have been enriched by the availability of the 80 or 90 minutes of time that this movie goes on to plunder.

Questions like that are fruitless, I suppose. "Like Father Like Son" is based on an Idiot Plot, in which everyone has to be an idiot or the problem would be solved and the movie would be over.

Actually, if the movie were funny, the Idiot Plot wouldn't matter. But this movie is dismally, painfully not funny. The screenplay by Lorne Cameron and Steven L. Bloom makes a crucial miscalculation. It thinks the mind-transfer gimmick itself is funny. It is not. It is only the peg on which to hang funny incidents, of which this movie has one.

I will name the movie's single funny incident, because, lord knows, we have time. It occurs when Moore's body, inhabited by a teenager, tries to smoke and chew gum at the same time during a hospital board meeting. Moore is a master of small-scale physical comedy, and he handles this scene well. The movie gives him nothing else of interest to do. He's lucky. Kirk Cameron doesn't get even one good scene. Think of the endless inventions of the Steve Martin and Lily Tomlin mind-sharing comedy "All of Me," and you'll see how much is missing here.

The ineptness of director Rod Daniel is sort of stunning. Look at the way he sets up one scene after another and then can't find the laugh, the punch line, or even the end of the scene.

There was comic potential in a scene where Moore (inside the kid) goes out on a date to a rock concert with a teenage girl. But all the movie gives us is Moore complaining about how loud the music is and taking the girl home early. Meanwhile, Cameron (inside Moore) is being seduced by a sexy older woman and sets the sofa on fire. Anyone reading this review could have directed at least one of these scenes better than Daniel.

Perhaps the most pathetic aspect of the movie is the way it tries to cross one genre with another in a shameless appeal to everybody. Would you believe this movie contains a complete high school comedy, right down to the bully who picks on the hero? Would you believe there is a chase scene? Would you believe Moore is made to do a ripoff of Tom Cruise's dancing-on-the-furniture scene from "Risky Business?" You would? Yeah. Me, too.

Loved the response time of the seller and the fact that the product was in better condition than stated. Would most definitely deal with this seller again.

Listen. We all know that Judge Reinhold and Fred Savage and blah blah were "bigger stars" and the age difference stuff and all that. Yes. We know. But this movie is unbelievable. The plot is done over and over, yeah, but having Dudley Moore playing a just-became-a teenager, and Kirk Cameron "playing" an uptight father, Sean Astin...."Trigger"...hell yeah, what a killer name for a sidekick. The 80's will come back for everyone who watches this. Basically, this movie works because of all the right plot twists. It's just as good as Vice Versa or all the other "switch movies" Just get it, you won't be disappointed.

Like Father, Like Son IS One Of My Favorite Movies,I bought The dvd,heh great Movie,Trading places has never been Funnier,,Kirk Cameron did a good role,I hope LISTEN TO ME Will Come Out on dvd Soon,I have it On LASER DISC But i am waitin 'til It Comes Out on dvd as well to get it :)