‘Trading Places’ Review: Modern Touches Brighten Uneven Adaptation of Reagan-Era Movie Comedy

variety.com:

Frank Rizzo After the Great Recession of ’08 — not to mention anxiety about the current economy — will a Reagan-era comedy about insider trading and the glory of greed get the same laughs?

Can it sing, too?In the 1983 movie “Trading Places,” the life of a financial manager is switched with a Philly street hustler when two filthy-rich commodities brokers — brothers Mortimer and Randolph Duke  — make a nature-versus-nurture wager and puppet-master their secret social experiment.

The same prince-and-pauper plot outline applies to the latest film-to-musical treatment premiering this month at Atlanta’s Alliance Theatre, which last launched the joyous “The Prom” to New York — and before that, the less successful “Tuck Everlasting.” But this screwball switcheroo still has a long way to go before it’s a safe Broadway bet.

At this stage, it’s off-balance in its leads, inconsistent in its tone and uneven in its comedy and tunes, while still managing to deliver some fun along the way.In the film, Eddie Murphy’s brazen con artist stole the spotlight from Dan Aykroyd playing Louis Winthrope III, the preppy  financier brought down to the gutter by the manipulative brothers (played onstage by Marc Kudisch and Lenny Wolpe).