The 7th and final movie I decided to watch closing out my Romantic Comedy week was one of my favorites of the week, 13 Going on 30! I really really enjoyed this movie and did so even more this time that I watched it. I have seen it several times before and enjoyed certain scenes here or there but this time I really thought it was funny and quite endearing and enjoyed it overall more than I had ever before. Below is my detailed review.
The cast for this film was great! I thought Jennifer Garner was amazing in this movie and absolutely adorable and convincing as a teenager in a 30 year old's body. Well technically more like a 20 year olds body to be honest with you but she was playing a 30 year old. Gwyneth Paltrow, Hilary Swank, and Renee Zellweger were all considered for Garner's role of Jenna Rink but I'm so glad they were not the lead in this film. None of them would have compared to Garner and I don't believe any of them would have been as convincing or cute as Garner. I think she was a perfect choice for this film!
The rest of the cast was great too like I said before. I especially like Mark Ruffalo and have for awhile now. He is one of my favorite actors and I was happy to see him as the character Matt in this film. He was great as usual and he is just one of the really nice guys that you like to see in films. Judy Greer starred as Jenna's nemesis/friend/nemesis Lucy and she is a staple in romantic comedy movies. Sam Ball was hilarious in his role as Jenna's grown up hockey star boyfriend and Andy Serkis was hilarious as Jenna's grown up boss Richard Kneeland. The film really revolved around these 5 individuals and they were all great and that made this movie very fun to watch!
There is so much I liked about this movie. The music, the dancing, the love story, the fairytale ending, etc. There were so many great qualities of this film that made it so enjoyable so lets start with the music and dancing. They were a very integral part of the film and made up some of the most enjoyable scenes. This film had a very strong 80's musical them because after all that was the time frame that Jenna was a teenager at the beginning of the film. Songs that were played throughout this film were Jessie's Girl, Thriller, Burning Down the House, Crazy for you, I wanna Dance with somebody, Ice Ice Baby (90's), and Love is a Battlefield. I always love seeing old 80's music in films! Lets talk more about Michael Jackson's Thriller though!
There are several dance scenes in this film but none bigger than the Thriller dance scene at Jenna's work party. This scene was classic and is easily one of my favorite dance scenes in a movie of all time and I have a lot of favorites so that's really saying something. What I loved so much about it was Jenna's innocence at the beginning of the dance and her complete disregard for embarrassing herself or thinking about how it would affect her and more so her company. She just went in and went for it and then it got better when she pulled Matt in and got him out there. Slowly one by one then group by group more and more joined in for the infamous dance sequence for this video and at the end Jenna's boss capped it off with his perfectly stepped moves and moonwalk finishing touch. It was just a fun memorable scene and probably my favorite of the entire film.
There were other scenes that were downright hilarious and one of them Sam Ball was personally responsible for. He played Alex Carlson the famous NY Ranger Hockey player who just happened to be Jenna's boyfriend. The scene where they are back in his apartment and he does a striptease dance to Vanilla Ice's Ice Ice Baby that is downright comical! The dance moves, the swoosh hockey shot move, and the tighty whities! Just funny, funny, and funnier!! Truly a great scene. Another more PG rated scene that was funny was when Jenna was at her neighbor's house for a slumber party and they all danced around in their pajamas singing the song, "Love is a Battlefield". This scene in particular is a scene where we are reminded how perfect Garner was for this part.
I thought the sequence where Jenna asked for Matt's help in shooting high school type photos with dances and graduations was very cool. I loved the idea behind it and thought it was a unique touch for her magazine and the film and it eventually led to a kiss with the engaged Matt after a short swing on a swing set in the park. You could tell these two were meant for each other at that very moment. Although I'm never a big promoter of someone stealing someone else's fiancée this is a movie so its ok, right? haha. In order for this film to come to its conclusion this just had to be the case and it was done in a way that Jenna actually traveled back to her age of 13 and confessed her love to Matt and then all of a sudden we see them on their wedding day so in the end there really was no fiancée so all ends well for this film and it had the romantic ending we all long for in these type of films.
Considering the great throwback 80's music, the hilarious dance scenes, and the very endearing and adorable character of Jenna Rink this film was really a treat to watch. Add in Mark Ruffalo, a very funny boss, and an incredibly cheerful and comical boyfriend this movie really hit on all the marks and is one heck of a great romantic comedy! The story was very original as well and I liked that. This easily gets an A!
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