Freakier Friday is the latest legacy sequel in a long line of them, especially in 2025. But for every 28 Years Later, there’s also an I Know What You Did Last Summer. They can be extremely hit or miss, with some of them doing a near disservice to the original films. Others expand and more than justify their existence, which is mostly designed to exploit nostalgia. As for the sequel to 2003’s Freaky Friday, it’s neither, serving as a middle-of-the-road, inoffensive follow-up.
Freakier Friday Review
It might have been a little surprising to see that Disney was bringing Freaky Friday back. It might’ve seemed like they were just trying to exploit nostalgia to make a few bucks. That is exactly what they’re doing, as is typical of Disney and plenty of other movie studios these days, but it’s ultimately not a cheap, lifeless attempt to do so.
Freakier Friday is doing absolutely nothing new, plot-wise. The setting is different, but it’s pretty much a one-to-one modernized version of the same plot and conflict, just with four people who need to see eye to eye. That extra duo makes it a little hard to follow who’s who at first, as well.
It follows the same exact narrative arc, too. We have two people who can’t get along, but they really need to, so they all end up switching bodies, slowly coming to understand each other better and face their problems together rather than alone. It worked well the first time, and while it certainly doesn’t have anything new to say about that message or theme, it is a nice message for a newer, younger audience, many of whom probably weren’t old enough to see it the first time.
And while this is a total retread of the same story with different focal characters, it is wholesome and endearing enough to forgive. There is some value in learning to understand others around us, and to see what someone else might be going through. There are also some brief (and I mean very brief) allusions to dealing with grief.
The cast is very much game for the absurdity, and there’s a palpable sense of joy over getting to do something fun on screen. Old actors pretending to be young and young actors pretending to be old is still a delight. Unfortunately, many of the supporting characters don’t get the same treatment.
Manny Jacinto is seriously wasted here. He has a pretty rough, almost nonexistent British accent, even though he’s not British and the plot didn’t demand that he or his daughter be from England. They could’ve been from anywhere, and it’s easier for British actors to put on an English accent successfully than vice versa.
Additionally, while the movie is surprisingly very funny at times, Jacinto gets to do very little comedic work, which is maybe his greatest strength. He’s incredibly funny in The Good Place, and he is absolutely not given good enough writing to take advantage of his talents. It’s nice to see him do something different, but the movie is definitely a comedy, and he’s one of the most underutilized assets.
On the other hand, Jamie Lee Curtis is really good. She’s clearly having a ton of fun revisiting this role, and she does the bulk of the heavy lifting here. Her performance is good, and she’s quite funny. Her comedic timing is good, and her ability to play the younger character again is stellar. Without her, this movie falls apart.
The comedy is pretty good, especially at the beginning. It starts to drag and become grating at points, but there are so many more good jokes than bad. And if you ask the rest of my theater, they were all good jokes. People had a blast, and I suspect that most will. It’s a real crowd-pleaser, even if I’m not necessarily the target audience here.
I also have no great affinity for the original, which is a good but not great movie. Freakier Friday rehashing the same plot and messaging does nothing for me since it brings nothing to the table, but that won’t be a problem for those who hold Freaky Friday in a high regard. And with legacy sequels happening all the time, it’s certainly a positive sign that this one doesn’t butcher the original and isn’t a horrible movie, either.
Conclusion
Freakier Friday is totally inoffensive. There are two ways to go with a legacy sequel, either rehashing much of the first to be safe or trying to change things up. The latter can backfire dramatically and alienate the fans of the original movies that the studios clearly had in mind, so Disney decided to play it safe, so the movie does exactly what you expect it to. Because that’s what it did the first time. It’s hardly a bad way to spend a little time in the theater, though, even if some of the other movies in theaters right now are significantly better.
Score: 2.75/5
