Freaky Friday

I've watched this film twice-once on TV and once on YouTube. I love this movie! It's not a big-budget production, but the story is good, the two main actresses are fantastic, and it's absolutely fun and hilarious.

In my opinion, Gaby Hoffmann portrayed an adult in a sublime way-better than either Lindsay Lohan (2018) or Jodie Foster (1976). For example, she was convincingly clumsy and awkward when performing teenage activities like playing sports or talking to classmates. At the same time, she excelled at standing up to adults when they were unfair. It was also funny how she didn't even try to pretend to be her daughter and did exceptionally well in school subjects that Annabelle struggled with.

To sum up, it's not a perfect film, but it's one I truly enjoy and could watch many times.

Freaky Friday (1995) is the second entry in the Freaky Friday franchise and the first of 3 remakes to the 1976 movie of the same name. This movie was a first time watch for me and it was good.

Positives for Freaky Friday (1995): This movie does good job at taking the story from the 1976 original and putting it in the setting of the 1990's. The two lead performances from Shelley Long as Ellen and Gaby Hoffmann as Annabelle are good and they feel very different from the versions we got from Jodie Foster and Barbara Harris in the 1976 movie. The supporting cast is also great and their banter with each other was good. The movie moves at a good pace where stuff is happening in every scene and it wasn't boring. And finally, the humor is quite good for a movie set in the 1990's.

Negatives for Freaky Friday (1995): While I did like the movie, I also have to say that it hasn't aged very well. This movie was made for TV and it definitely has the budget of a TV show from the 1990's. And finally, I watched this movie free on YouTube and the movie's quality looks like crap.

Overall, Freaky Friday (1995) is a good remake to the 1976 original and I did enjoy the 1990's feel even with its flaws. I would give this movie a good recommendation and you can watch it on YouTube.

What can I say? I saw the movie. I liked it. But I would recommend it to children and teens, NOT to adults. This is a typical Disney family-movie.

If you are a person who likes realistic ('based on true story') movies, DON'T watch this. If you're in for some fun and a little laugh, you should watch this movie, because some situations are really hilarious.

I had the opportunity of seeing the original version of this movie when I was in third grade. Believe it or not, this was the first movie that I ever saw Jodie Foster in--not "Taxi Driver" (considering that I was 9, that was probably a good thing).

This was not a bad movie, and it wasn't intended to be identical to the original, but the peripheral characters in this version fell flat. Sandra Bernhard was stifled--not very funny at all, just kind of stuffy and bitchy. And I was expecting a spunky "tomboy" Annabelle like Jodie Foster's, not the subdued, frustrated suburban teenager that Gaby Hoffman played (although that's actually closer to Mary Rodgers' novel). And NOBODY could play Mrs. Andrews like Barbara Harris. The sight of her waterskiing in a velvet evening dress with her false eyelashes coming off was just too priceless!

One thing I DID like about this version, though: the red convertible VW bug that Shelley Long drives is identical to the one that Barbara Harris drove in the original! I was so afraid we'd be seeing a BMW or some other yuppie wussy-wagon. Thank God for SOME tradition!

In short, don't watch the original version before you see this one. Let this one stand on its own first. It isn't made to be compared, but it's inevitable that you will compare it.

1995's Freaky Friday remake seemed like a good idea at the time. You've got two great actresses -- Shelley Long and Gaby Hoffmann -- to play the mother and daughter. You've got half the cast of 1995's "The Baby-sitters Club" (Asher Metchik, Natanya Ross, Marla Sokoloff). And then there's the cameo appearances that every Disney film should have (Carol Kane, Drew Carey, Sandra Bernhard). So what's the problem? First of all, as another reviewer suggested, it should NOT be compared to the original. The plots are nothing alike except for the mother-daughter switching thing. Their lives, predicaments, and personalities in the original and the remake are completely different. Even so, I'm going to compare them just long enough to say that in the original, you could believe Ellen was in Annabel's body and vice versa. With this 1995 version, Ellen and Annabel's personalities were so similar to begin with (both kind of loud, bold, etc.) that I was totally NOT convinced they'd even switched places. What's more, the film just goes on and on. Alan Rosenberg's character gets to yell a lot. And the end is really anticlimactic. Despite all of this, it's a decent movie and I'm surprised it hasn't been picked up to air on the Disney channel every once in a while. And if they would be so kind as to start airing these older movies they should definitely consider "The Great Mom Swap" -- another ABC gem from the same year.