Trading Places 7.4/10. The site's consensus states: "Featuring deft interplay between Eddie Murphy and Dan Aykroyd, "Trading Places" is an immensely appealing social satire." Metacritic gave the film a score of 66 out of 100, based on 9 critics, which indicates "generally favorable reviews". Author and critic Richard Schickel of "Time" magazine called "Trading Places" "one of the most emotionally satisfying and morally gratifying comedies of recent times". While admitting Aykroyd's success in demonstrating "perfect prissiness as Winthorpe", Schickel commented on Murphy's performance as Valentine calling Murphy "a force to be reckoned with" and stating that he "makes "Trading Places" something more
Trading Places in direct contrast to his own—often draws comparisons to Mark Twain's novel "The Prince and the Pauper". First published in 1881, the novel follows the lives of a prince and a beggar—both of them of adolescent age—who use their uncanny resemblance to each other as a premise to switch places temporarily; the prince takes on a life of poverty and misery while the pauper enjoys the lavish luxuries of a royal life. Parallels have also been drawn between "Trading Places" and Mozart's 18th century comic opera "The Marriage of Figaro" in which a servant (Figaro) foils the plans of his