At 13, Jenna Rink (young Jenna is played by Christa B. Allen) desires nothing more than to be one of the cool girls in school, and she sees her birthday as a chance to impress those popular girls (and possibly get the football player boyfriend). Meanwhile, her best friend, Matt (who is played as a kid by Sean Marquette), doesn't see why she needs to move to the in-crowd; he likes her just the way she is. When her party doesn't turn out as well as she hoped, she throws a bit of a fit and wishes to be all grown up. Thanks to some magic wishing powder that Matt sprinkled onto a gift for her, she suddenly wakes up 17 years later in modern New York City (the previous scenes were very much in the 80's).
So, as an almost 30 year-old woman with no memories of her life since that birthday, Jenna (Jennifer Garner, Alias) starts bumbling her way through her life to discover that she somehow got everything she wanted. Not only did she become one of the popular girls soon after her 13th birthday, but that path allowed her to become a top editor at her favorite magazine, Poise, and date a star hockey player (played by Samuel Ball). Of course, while Jenna appears to be 30, she still has the mind and mentality of a 13 year-old. There are frequent girlish giggles and innocent naive moments that really add to the comedy part of this romantic comedy (like when her boyfriend starts stripping for her).
In her confusion, she quickly looks for her friend Matt (now played by Mark Ruffalo) to confide in and figure out what is going on, but when she tracks him down, she doesn't like what she hears. It turns out she stopped hanging around Matt after the events of her first teenage birthday (she believed he ruined her party). The two hadn't been in touch since high school, and try as she might, Jenna just can't understand how that could have happened.
As the movie progresses, she finds out more and more about her current self. While she enjoys working with Lucy (Judy Greer), one of the popular girls, and for Richard (Andy Serkis), she can't help but notice the way people treat her as if she is a back-stabbing beeyotch. Ultimately, Jenna's journey from the naive 13 year-old girl to an adult woman leads her to realize that the person she grew up to be isn't the person that she wants to be, but her desire to go after Matt and correct her life has another complication, his fiancee.
13 Going on 30 is a really precious movie. Garner shows that she can easily slip into the fun and flirty roll of Jenna (which is good since she was still playing a secret agent in Alias at the time). Plus the interactions between she and Ruffalo are perfect. Between the awkward early stages when Jenna and Matt first meet up after years of being apart, to the final confrontation at Matt's wedding, it's all just great.
This Blu-ray release also has quite a few special features, but nothing new since the "Fun and Flirty Edition" that came out on DVD a while back. There are a couple of making-of featurettes that mostly involve interviews with the cast and alternate beginning and ending sequences. I have to say the alternate sequences (basically, its the scenes with the kids... and different child actors, I might add), definitely aren't as good as the ones used in the film. Not only do the kids used in the movie look a lot more like their adult counterparts, but the story just feels better with the version used. But it's fun to watch anyway. The "I Was a Teenage Geek" featurette interviews the cast members about their high school experience and there is a good bit about 80's fashion and several music videos (like "Love is a Battlefield" and "Jessie's Girl").
While I believe 13 Going on 30 is a fun romantic comedy that I could watch over and over again, I don't think it is one you have to rush and get on Blu-ray right away. If you already have a copy on DVD, then you can definitely hold off.
