For the past couple of weeks, we’ve reviewed a couple of classic “alternative” Christmas movies for this year’s Holiday-Palooza. While it’s been a blast looking back to the past, it’s about time we got a little more contemporary. That’s why I booted up my Netflix and simply clicked on the recommended and most watched recently produced Holiday movie they have up there.

Unfortunately for me, that had to be the Netflix Original Film, Family Switch. To be fair, I wouldn’t say Family Switch is god-awful. But I also wouldn’t say it’s worth watching. If you want to get into the details, read on!

But before you do, I will say this is going to be a SPOILER FREE review. While Family Switch has been out on Netflix for around a month as of the time of this writing, I’m guessing some subscribers are kind of holding off from watching this as it isn’t Christmas yet. So, yeah, SPOILER FREE review!

Anyway, Family Switch involves a pretty disconnected family. The mother, Jess, is a prim and proper architect. The father, Bill, is a washed up musician who pines for his glory days. The daughter, CC, is an athletic rebellious teen. The son, Wyatt, is an introverted genius. There’s also a baby and a dog in the family. During a trip to the planetarium to view the planetary alignment, their family dysfunction boils over, with each family member wishing they try being in each other’s shoes. The fight leads to the telescope getting destroyed and, the next morning, Jess and CC find themselves in each other’s bodies while Bill and Wyatt switching theirs. Oh, and the baby and the dog did a body swap as well. They now have to contend with each other trying to accomplish some particular task that’s important to one another.

If this sounds like the plot to Freaky Friday but with three times the body swapping, you’re absolutely correct. While this does seem it would give itself to more antics, it does. Too bad it leads to one of my biggest problems with the film: there’s just too much going on. You’re constantly bounced around from storyline to storyline and you just can’t really let the gravity of the situation just sink in. The worst one is the dog and the baby switching bodies as it’s just filler in this 105-minute flick. It also leads to one of the most horrifying and worst CGI jobs I’ve seen. God, that CGI baby is terrifying to look at!

The film is also stuffed with predictable plot points and tropes we’ve seen in a lot of other better family movies. There’s a ton of foreshadowing in Family Switch and you just know how it’s all going to figure into the plot once the family does switch bodies. They also give the family a lot of quirks, like the mom knowing a lot of music from the ’90s and the daughter getting a tattoo without informing her parents. These elements are introduced just to try to get a cheap laugh but it’s just there for the cheap laugh and is very quickly forgotten when they use the joke. That’s not to say there aren’t some bits in Family Switch I did like. They do use the entire family switching bodies effectively in a couple of jokes which do come off as awkwardly fun. But these moments are so few and far away.

The acting is, well, bearable. I wouldn’t call anyone believable but I also wouldn’t say they’re miscast as there are some fun performances here. I did enjoy Emma Myers take on trying to be a stickler of an adult as well as her being a rebellious teen. I also liked Brandy Noon, who plays the son, when his body gets possessed by the father as he does come off as rather charming, which is supposed to be the opposite of his regularly dorky self. Sadly, I did not take to Jennifer Garner and Ed Helms after the body swap as the performances come off as too hammy and, well, too young. They’re supposed to be portraying teenagers, not children!

Then again, I wouldn’t say their performances are awful. I can’t really blame them because the script is just plain bad! While there were some moments which got a chuckle out of me, the movie feels like an exercise of cutting and pasting some bits and pieces from other body swap films and rolling it all together in a ball, hoping it’ll coalesce into a comprehensible story. Surprisingly, it barely does. But that’s not something that should be applauded; that was just dumb luck.

I also do have to ask if Family Switch actually began its life as a Christmas movie as the festiveness of the holiday season is barely in it! It’s mentioned that the planetary alignment is ending on Christmas Eve and there is a Christmas tree here and there as well as a rendition of Santa Claus is Coming to Town. But that’s basically it! All the holiday elements feels like they were written in on the fly when Netflix decided they needed an original film for Christmas and decided that Family Switch would now be it! Basically, it doesn’t feel as festive as other holiday movies so you’re not going to get as much Christmas feels from this.

However, as much as I didn’t care for Family Switch, I can’t really say it’s a terrible movie. I would say it’s a pretty forgettable movie and there are slew of other flicks who use the body swapping premise better. Emma Myers performance is good but not enough for me to save the film. Family Switch is a movie with mostly misses than hits. It also barely meets the requirements to be called a Christmas movie so it’s not really a good watch during the Holidays. I say skip this as there are much better body swap comedies and much better Christmas movies out there.

Have you seen Family Switch? What did you think of it? Let me know in the comments section below!