Fun Size (2012)

I must first clarify that I like this kind of movies, is not a difficult formula to work, the popular and the losers young or teenagers, familiar faces or trendy, funny and absurd situations, etc.

In the case of "Fun Size" which reminded me of "License to Drive" despite having known faces such as Victoria Justice, Chelsea Handler and Johnny Knoxville, nothing seems to work.

It is one of the least funny comedy movies I've ever seen, I didn't get a laugh or even a smile, the characters are recycled, pretentious and soulless. Or maybe more than the characters the problem is a bad script or a very poor choice of cast. Even details like the color hair or the costume of the protagonist's seems to be accurate. It's all a mess.

I understand what they wanted to do but they did not. They had the elements but weren't able to capitalize them. It was a big disappointment for me.

Fmovies: Pretty small audience when my husband and I saw this.

If you giggle hysterically over a teen girl deciding that maybe her Justice Ruth Ginsberg costume needs to be updated to a "sexy Justice Ginsberg", this movie is for you. We loved the nerdy humor.

If that joke, or the running one with an 8 year old deciding to be a one-armed Spidey (complete with bloody plastic severed arm) doesn't fill you with mirth, skip this film. We loved it.

Of course, we also loved Hudson Hawke, Howard the Duck, and The Stupids.

Happy Halloween!

Now here is one Fun-Sized flick that may get some parents in an uproar: "Fun Size" is an amusing 86-minute distraction from Nickelodeon Productions that's rated "PG-13" and that alone should caution some parents that this teen flick may not be all that appropriate for anyone - obviously - who is under the age of 13.

For a brief 86 minutes, the "PG-13" rating actually means something again.

But I digress. By virtue of the mere fact that it's produced by Nickelodeon, there are some misguided parents who will no doubt take their kids to see it anyway. Hence, the confusion over some irate parents who don't think it's appropriate for their young ones.

I'm 27. I grew up when Nickelodeon was still catering almost exclusively to the entertainment demands of kids (and still had a smidgen of intelligence). Then during the mid-1990s, the channel began a massive face-palming descent into idiocy as it began replacing staples of its animated and live-action programming with idiotic crap. "Doug" and "Rugrats" soon gave way to "SpongeBob SquarePants" and "The Wild Thornberrys."

The channel briefly redeemed itself with the Japanese Anime'-inspired animated fantasy-adventure series "Avatar: The Last Airbender" (and later its follow-up, "The Legend of Korra").

In more recent years, however, Nickelodeon seems to be catering almost exclusively to the demands of teenagers, with shows like "iCarly," "Zoey 101," and "Victorious" ruling the airwaves; I actually really liked "iCarly" and "Victorious" - before Nick unceremoniously canceled them.

And this is how we arrived at this new film from Josh Schwartz - the creator of "The O.C." and "Gossip Girl" who makes his directorial debut here, while working from Max Werner's screenplay. "Fun Size" takes equal bits of classic teen flicks such as "Sixteen Candles" (1984) and "Adventures in Babysitting" (1987). Whipsmart high school geeky nobody Wren (Victoria Justice, of the aforementioned "Victorious") gets invited to a Halloween-night bash headed by the hunky Aaron Riley (Thomas McDonnell), who has a habit of dressing up as the lead character from his favorite movies, in this case Johnny Depp's Capt. Jack Sparrow from the "Pirates of the Caribbean" film series.

Her plans get sidetracked when her cradle-robbing widowed mother Joy (Chelsea Handler) gets invited to a grown-ups-only Halloween party of her own by her current immature man-boy obsession Keevin (John Pence). This means that Wren must now babysit her eight-year-old younger brother Albert (Jackson Nicoll), who hasn't spoken a single word in almost year, ever since the death of their father. But also like their father, Albert still maintains a strong penchant for crude pranks and general raising hell whenever the opportunity presents itself.

Things get complicated when trick-or-treating during the course of the night, Albert winds up missing (thus becoming the unlikely companion of a slightly miffed convenience store clerk named Fuzzy - played by Thomas Middleditch - on his Halloween-night quest of vengeance against his ex-girlfriend and her new boy-toy) and it's up to Wren, her best friend April (Jane Levy) and two nerdy classmates - Roosevelt (Thomas Mann, of "Project X") and Peng (Osric Chau) - to track him down and get him back h

Fun Size fmovies. A high-school girl - intent on attending a Halloween party hosted by the most popular boy in school- is forced to baby sit her adoringly troublesome younger brother whilst her mother undergoes a midlife crisis. An adventure ensues.

This is a pretty disposable, teen flick with nothing particularly new - a kind of "Superbad - lite". But I think it has a lot going for it.

The actors and characters are great and there is quite a lot going on under the bonnet. There are the normal teen themes of individualism, friendship and peer pressure. But there is also threads regarding loss and acceptance. It even looks at the mother who now finds her life at a loose end.

But of course this movie is mostly about fun! It has its fair share of losers and jocks and cute little kids blowing things up with cherry bombs. etc. etc.

This is hardly "Apocalypse Now" but for a afternoon NetFlix movie you could do an awful lot worse.

Cue opening title cards. 'Paramount Pictures presents'Â…all good so far. 'A Nickelodeon film.' One can almost feel their gut falling right through the seat, because what might have been a bearable yet unmemorable way to spend a lazy hour-and-a-half has just become a chore of grand proportions. The company's penchant for bottom-brow humour, borderline-insulting stereotypes and colourful sets over a competent plot again rears its disfigured head with Fun Size: a film so utterly contrived that even its target market of bright-eyed tweens may begin to question Mum and Dad's sanity in stringing them along.

The film follows socially awkward teen Wren's (Victoria Justice) efforts to help her single mom (Chelsea Handler) take care of hell-raising baby brother Albert (Jackson Nicoll). When Wren has to babysit him during Halloween, Albert creates his own adventure, forcing his sister to band with the local nerd patrol and bring him back home safely.

Intertwined in this menial plot is just about every cliché conceivable under the tween dramedy genre. At no point does Fun Size invoke any more than a louder-than-usual exhale through the nose- the kind of laugh where you don't find anything funny per se, but acknowledge the other person's attempt at humour if for no other reason than to break tension.

The screenplay screams of a six-hour effort, characterisation is non-existent and any attempts to make characters likable backfire profusely, none more evident than through Albert himself, whose smug, rotund face is not quite as mischievous as it is deserving of a clip around the ears to set him straight. Osric Chau and Thomas Middleditch do their best with minimal material, but by that stage they might as well be using a cup of water to douse the Great Fire of London. The disaster's going to go ahead anyway.

*There's nothing I love more than a bit of feedback, good or bad. So drop me a line on jnatsis@iprimus.com.au and let me know what you thought of my review. If you're looking for a writer for your movie website or other publication, I'd also love to hear from you.*

First of all, I'm not sure who this movie is marketed to. Kids? Nickelodeon's logo scrolls at the beginning of the movie giving that impression, yet there are crass jokes such as "tadpoles in your dad's sac". There's also breast touching, sexual tension during said breast touching, and a boy commenting on his mother's small boobs. This would be fine and dandy, if the rest of the content wasn't so juvenile. I personally don't mind crass jokes, but I felt as if they were out of place. I just felt as though type of people who'd appreciate tadpoles in ball sacs aren't going to enjoy watching a one-armed Spider-Man fool adults out of candy while trick-or-treating. (You may think I'm being a "prude" with this review, but I appreciate the humor and gratuitous nudity in films such as "Harold & Kumar". It's juts that "Harold & Kumar" knows what it is and what sort of audience is watching it.)

Alfred is supposed to be the charming yet devious little boy character, but he was just so unlikeable. You're introduced to him on the toilet, hearing the sound effects of poop plopping into the water. As if once weren't enough, the last shot you see is, likewise, Alfred pooping on the toilet - sound effects and all. It's not funny, it's pretty gross, actually. Make sure you aren't snacking on popcorn while you watch.

A lot of the antics the teenagers get into while driving around feel very forced, with little resolution. Peng shooting chicken at a bully that he never encounters again? A kid totals his car, and his mothers not only don't care, but give him keys to a second car? I don't know. I just don't believe anything presented to me, and yet it doesn't have that surreality of something like "Tide Land". Though, it wasn't a complete waste of time. Thomas Middleditch & Thomas Mann play charming characters, Victoria Justice and Jane Levy are likewise talented actors who tried their best to bring lukewarm material to life. If you're looking for a slightly inappropriate and awkward Halloween movie to watch with the family, well, why not? Just don't expect too much out of it.