Top 10 body-swap and identity-switch movies
Films allow us to walk around in another person's shoes for a bit, to see life through the eyes of another. It's sometimes thrilling, sometimes scary, sometimes heartbreaking. But when films get literal with that concept, the results are often hilarious.
Body-swapping and identity-swapping are movie tropes that will never die as long as we can dream up spell-casting shamans, voodoo-practicing murderers and creepy mechanical fortune tellers. And that's a good thing, as these 10 switcheroo movies can attest.
10. "Chances Are" (1989, rated PG)
The concept is a touch icky but the end result is still incredibly charming (Robert Downey Jr.'s dreamy big brown eyes will have that effect): A man dies and is instantly reincarnated, but a mix-up at the pearly gates causes him, as a twenty-something, to suddenly remember his past life. The timing is unfortunate, because he happens to be courting his past-life daughter when he realizes he has the hots for his past-life wife. Only Downey could be winning enough to triumph over shades of incest in a rom-com.
9. "Child's Play" (1988, rated R)
Only the '80s could have produced a movie that's as scary as it is stupid. The iconic horror movie about a dying murderer taking voodoo possession of a talking doll's body has had surprising staying power, and killer doll Chucky can go toe-to-toe (or blade-to-blade) with Jason Voorhees or Freddy Krueger in any horror-movie hall of fame. What accounts for the cult following? Frightfully inventive, facially expressive animatronic-puppet work that kicks even the mildest case of doll phobia into high gear, viciously voiced by great character actor Brad Dourif.
8. "Face/Off" (1997, rated R)
In a decade rife with ludicrously high-concept action films ("Con Air," "Speed" and peak Steven Seagal anyone?), "Face/Off" reigns with the king of crazy plots: A criminal and a copper undergo face transplants and assume each other's identity. Never mind that the warring pair is played by Nicolas Cage and John Travolta, whose face would never fit on Cage's skull. Future generations will think it too stupid to be true, but they'll be missing out on action-film director John Woo's signature balletic gun fu.
7. "All of Me" (1984, rated PG-13)
Steve Martin in his prime, engaging in slapstick comedy with… himself? That's the undeniable hook in this offbeat Carl Reiner romantic comedy. Attorney Roger (Martin) gets sucked into overseeing lifelong invalid Edwina's (Lily Tomlin) unusual end-of-life directives: a shaman is going to transfer her soul into the beautiful young body of her stablehand's daughter, who's set to inherit her considerable estate. Except the ceremony goes wrong, of course, and Edwina ends up inhabiting the right half of Roger's body. Makes their first time using a urinal together interesting. "How dare you say 'penis' to a dead person?"
6. "Heart and Souls" (1993, rated PG-13)
The push to make Robert Downey Jr. a rom-com leading man was a strange one, but it worked in this quirky fantasy in which a quartet of ghosts killed in a freak bus accident (played by Charles Grodin, Alfre Woodard, Tom Sizemore and Kyra Sedgwick) become spiritually tied to Thomas (Downey). It's not until he's a full-grown, callous business man royally screwing up his relationship with the perfect-as-ever Elisabeth Shue that they realize they're not Thomas' guardian angels, but ghosts meant to use him to tie up their unresolved issues. And sometimes that means inhabiting Thomas' body. At a B.B. King concert. To sing "The National Anthem."
5. "Ghost" (1990, rated PG-13)
Patrick Swayze and Demi Moore sex it up at the potter's wheel to "Unchained Melody" and make film history. They play a couple separated by death when Swayze takes a bullet in a back alley. But he proves a persistent spirit and seeks out his assailant with the help of sham psychic Oda Mae Brown (Whoopi Goldberg) who can, inexplicably, hear him (and in one peculiar romantic scene, be possessed by him). "Ghost" became one of the highest-grossing films of the year, and Goldberg (rightfully) won an Oscar for a best-supporting-actress role that required her to act against a person she wasn't supposed to be able to see.
4. "Heaven Can Wait" (1978, rated PG)
Warren Beatty plays Joe Pendleton, a Los Angeles Rams quarterback who finds himself in a heavenly conundrum when his guardian angel escorts him to the other side — before his time. His body has been cremated by the time they discover the mistake, so his angelic caseworker (James Mason) comes up with a temporary solution: stick him in the body of a rich guy who's about to kick it until they can find him another soon-to-be-dead quarterback to inhabit. It was a good plan until he had to muck it up by falling in love. (But who can resist when it's Julie Christie?) It's all very silly and sweet; the film's charm is that it doesn't hold back on either trait.
3. "Freaky Friday" (1976, rated G)
"I wish I could switch places with her for just one day." Dangerous words, those, in a fantasy film, especially when uttered on Friday the 13th at the same time by a bickering mother (Barbara Harris) and daughter (Jodie Foster). The precocious teen is impatient for independence, while the hardworking housewife just wants some respect. The 2003 remake starring Lindsay Lohan and Jamie Lee Curtis is also freakishly good (words not often associated with Lohan movies).
2. "Big" (1988, rated PG)
How's this for overreacting: 12-year-old Josh Baskin, miffed that he's not tall enough to ride a roller coaster (or get the girl) makes a whiny wish to be big at the creepy carnival fortune-teller machine, Zoltar. His wish is granted, and he wakes up a 30-something adult man in Underoos (Tom Hanks). A veritable '80s classic, so long as you can push aside the fact that his adult romantic interest commits statutory rape on a 12-year-old (and that she doesn't seem all that terribly aghast at that eventual revelation). Better to bask in the warm glow of the "Chopsticks" duet in FAO Schwarz.
1. "Being John Malkovich" (1999, rated R)
It was the feature-film debut of two provocateurs of the bizarre: screenwriter Charlie Kaufman and director Spike Jonze, and it was a marriage of indie bliss. John Cusack plays would-be professional puppeteer Craig Schwartz, who finds a portal that leads into actor John Malkovich's mind on the 7½ floor of an office building and charges admission for 15 minutes in Malkovich's brain, after which the user is ejected into a ditch near the New Jersey Turnpike. It's weird, but not so weird it relinquishes its humanity, ultimately telling a story about individuality and fear of death, and Cusack delivers a final moment so suffused with sadness, the cerebral kicks give way to unexpected heartbreak.
Reach the reporter at barbara.vandenburgh@arizonarepublic.com or 602-444-8371. Twitter.com/BabsVan.