Metascores and the cinema "specialist" clique will only rate a comedy if it's cynical, tries really hard to be clever and above everything else. So if a comedy comes across as obviously too mainstream, as having a "boring redundant same old chorus" of a "predictable" moral at the end and feels genuine and positive, then it's a complete failure and waste of time.

Looking at the premise, the poster and the kind of promotion this film has brought upon itself you'd think it was only good for one laugh while half-wasted, and that's it. But that's just not the case.

It immediately establishes that it's going to be that comedy that actually gave a darn and put effort into writing the jokes. We're not fed tripe, there's a real spirit in the humor here - and Reynolds as always provides his own quality touch where if you've seen him a couple of times before you know he's added some of the lines himself. The film is pretty swift at establishing the characters, some of the tensions, and delivering the premise straight away without messing around. And as that happens, as the two leads swap bodies and roles, we're given a realistic depiction onscreen of what that would really be like, the film doesn't just go right for the completely goofy ridiculous scenes and as it progresses, it's actually well acted out, well scripted, very well paced and, impressively mature. This was genuinely given some thought on where to go from A to B to C, so on, from the introductory setup to the later stages. Sure there's a little bit of improbable plot magic, but it's kept in check commendably well: a vast majority of what's going on makes sense and rings true. And where such a film usually pushes way too hard on the humor eventually, this keeps it fresh and interesting every time it should've crashed considering its category.

A special mention to Leslie Mann who does surprisingly well (!). She helps convey key emotions for the plot and delivers in pivotal scenes that could've turned to trash very easily. Instead, there's real purpose and significance to those scenes, and she in particular did really well.

The film poses questions as you'd expect from such a synopsis: two guys, mutually polar opposites, switch lives...surely they discover how much they loved their old regular life, but also the infatuating prospect of falling right into the perfect framework created by the other where all those new options are available...

It's funny from start to finish, really funny in parts - it's full of twists and turns, nowhere near the linear development one would think; and it's totally coherent and fluid. I'm going to go out of my way here, and actually give this a proper 8/10. For its kind, it's one of the best I've ever seen and could hope to watch.