‘Little’ // Film Review: Body-Switching Comedy a Real Dud

Cast: Regina Hall, Issa Rae, Marsai Martin, Justin Hartley, Tone Bell

Director: Tina Gordon

Writer(s): Tina Gordon and Tracy Oliver

Runtime: 108 Minutes

Studio: Universal Pictures

Hard to believe that we haven’t gotten a movie about body-switching in quite a while. Remember them? They revolved around somebody who wants to be older or wished to be younger in the good days. Turns out it becomes true, and so on. Little, the latest comedy with that premise, is another one that could try to be anything but.

What’s the Story: Jordan Sanders (Regina Hall) bosses everyone around in her app development company, including her assistant April (Issa Rae). But when a little girl puts a magic trick on her to be little, she wakes up to find out she’s her 13-year-old self (Marsai Martin). receives the chance to relive the life of her younger self, at the point of her life when the pressures of adulthood become too much for her to bear.

Was I looking forward to Little? Not really since it going to be another classic take on Big. I was ultimately going to give this a shot, even if when it becomes repetitive. Director and co-writer Tina Gordon (Peeles) takes charge with Little, and it becomes apparent why we don’t see a lot from these types of comedies anymore. This is not very good.

The performances aren’t anything to praise about but are serviceable. Hall is at her best whenever she’s on-screen. Even though she is playing someone mean, she actually dominates it well enough to hate her. Rae is always a bright spot in anything, and you can see that she was good comedic timing and works well with each actress. If you didn’t know, Martin is the youngest person in Hollywood to executive produce a movie. She was fine, but the problem is that I couldn’t see her as a young version of Hall. Maybe it’s because I only see her as Diane on Black-ish, and I love her on that show.

But was it funny, though? Barely. Thanks to Hall, she was able to gain a few chuckles out of me. Everything else wasn’t humorous in the slightest when Gordon and Tracy Oliver’s script only has jokes to be aimed for this demographic audience. Even the ones that I laughed from the trailer wasn’t the case in the actual movie.

If you have seen anybody switching movie, you’ve seen all of the familiar beats that the script will follow through. Martin did pitch the idea for the movie, too. Little goes through the emotions of change who you were from before, being confident, and learning to live in the moment. It was even predictable when 17 Again came out, and that turned ten this year. With its themes of bullying and not being too mean doesn’t become that clear, that’s a problem for me. This could’ve been a lot better if it took chances in being a bit edgy. The times where it wants to have the heart doesn’t feel complete.

So, yeah, Little is just another body-switching comedy that doesn’t provide anything new that we haven’t seen before. When the performances are perfectly fine, it’s just not that funny and just predictable. I didn’t hate myself while watching it, but it could’ve been WAY better for an overdone premise like this.

Grade: C-