One of the freakiest things about “Freakier Friday” might just be the largely warm reception it’s received from critics, despite bearing a striking resemblance not to its beloved early aughts predecessor but cash grabs usually reserved for streaming.
Nisha Ganatra’s sequel to Disney’s 2003 box office success, “Freaky Friday,” hits theaters this week, reuniting Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan for another wedding weekend as mom Tess and adult daughter Anna, respectively.
Tess and an adolescent Anna previously gained new understanding for each other’s age-specific plights when they unwittingly swapped bodies ahead of the former’s upcoming nuptials to Anna’s soon-to-be stepdad (Mark Harmon).
Set two decades later, “Freakier” sees Anna about to marry widower Eric (Manny Jacinto) when she swaps bodies with her teen daughter, Harper (Julia Butters), as Tess swaps with Eric’s daughter, Lily (Sophia Hammons).
Despite some being skeptical the sequel could recapture the heart of the first film while also appealing to new viewers, “Freakier Friday” currently holds a 79% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, where the 2003 version maintains an 88% certified fresh designation. On Metacritic, the new installment has also earned largely positive reviews, leading to a generally favorable rating of 63.
Entertainment Weekly afforded the film an A-, particularly rare in the case of IP fare, praising “Freakier Friday” not only for its “laugh-out-loud humor and welcome fan service,” but for being “a heart-on-its-sleeve ode to strengthening and forging bonds.”
The “charming and genuinely sweet” sequel “has defied the odds,” according to Bloomberg News, while Nerdist hailed the film for “smartly us[ing] its starting point of nostalgia to bubble up into a movie that shines on its own.”
Slashfilm applauded the flick’s young stars for holding their own next to Lohan and Curtis, especially when it comes to the “emotional story beats that help make this sequel better than it has any right to be.”
TheWrap concurred, calling “Freakier Friday” the “best kind of legacy sequel” — one that “harkens back to what made the original work without literally doing the same thing all over again.”
But not all of the reviews have been quite so glowing.
The Hollywood Reporter wasn’t swayed by the “painfully stretched cash-grab,” saying the film pales in comparison to the magic and humor of the first.
“There’s nothing even remotely as funny in the new follow-up, ‘Freakier Friday,’ as Lohan’s high school grunge rocker Anna Coleman waking up in the body of Curtis as her control-freak psychotherapist mother Tess and screaming in horror at the mirror: ‘I’m like the crypt-keeper!’” wrote THR critic David Rooney. “I think I would have preferred a shot-for-shot remake.”
Awarding “Freakier Friday” just two out of five stars, The Independent said it doesn’t do much with Lohan’s long-awaited return to the big screen, “merely milk[ing] nostalgia” for fans of the original and pandering to younger, incoming ones.
But while critics from The Daily Beast and The Irish Times agreed the film is “no novel reinvention,” they still assert it “delights in every silly scene” and is “cute enough” to overcome its drawbacks.
“Freakier Friday” opens in theaters nationwide on Friday.
