Fun Size

Sometimes it's good to see a movie like "Fun Size" in order to appreciate all the other movies. Most movies aren't great, but even bad ones generally have at least some redeeming qualities. "Fun Size", on the other hand, is lifeless, joyless, stupid, and devoid of anything resembling charm, originality, or humor. There are no likable characters, no reasons to care about anything, and no point. It is flat-out terrible in the blandest, most generic way possible. It works solely as a reminder of better films that should be sought out instead.

It's Halloween in Cleveland, and Wren (Victoria Justice, property of Nickelodeon) was just invited to a party being thrown by super-hunk Aaron Riley (Thomas McDonell). The only problem is that she's stuck baby-sitting her younger, mute brother Albert (Jackson Nicoll) because her terrible mother (the reliably unpleasant Chelsea Handler) is too busy partying with guys half her age. The real problem occurs when Albert vanishes while trick-or-treating, so now Wren and her annoying best friend April (Jane Levy) team up with a pair of nerds with access to a car (Thomas Mann and Osric Chau) in order to find Albert and avert disaster, all without missing a killer party. The story and characters here are straight out of an 80's John Hughes movie, except without anything that makes them good or the least bit memorable.

"Fun Size" is just an unfunny mess of a movie, and not in any kind of interesting way, either. It looks cheap and feels as though it was edited together at random (the trailer contains numerous scenes which do not appear in the final film, which is not a surprise). None of the characters have any redeeming qualities unless you count being photogenic a redeeming quality, and no one even has a character arc. Well that's not true actually; the main character has an 'arc', but it's unearned and arbitrary. The whole thing is aimless, just randomly going from place to place without any sense of purpose or pacing. This stuff could be forgiven if anything was funny, but none of it is.

The only thing funny about any of the jokes in "Fun Size" are how obviously they are telegraphed. None of the gags are funny in the first place, but they are particularly unfunny when robbed of any spontaneity. "Our cat is allergic to any weird odors, so I sure hope you don't have any!" "I have to be real careful with the car because I'm in big trouble if anything happens to it!" "Oh don't worry, this musket isn't even real, so of course I won't shoot anyone with it!" I'm paraphrasing here (just barely), but you get the picture. This happens again and again, and it's just a combination of bad writing and laziness.

There's absolutely nothing that sets "Fun Size" apart from any other teenage comedy. This film isn't even trying, which is the worst sin of all. It just copies other successful formulas, subtracts any intelligence or heart, and adds nothing. It's so unoriginal that you can easily and accurately guess what happens to each character based solely on the poster. The only thing about "Fun Size" that stands out at all is how it can't decide which age group to pander to. It's a Nickelodeon movie, so you'd expect it to be for kids. Well, half of it is, with goofy pratfalls and poop jokes, but then the other half is rather raunchy (relatively speaking), and actually fairly inappropriate for anyone not at least in their teens. None of the humor is funny anyway, so maybe it doesn't even matter.

"Fun Size" begins and ends with a kid taking a dump, but I might as well have watched him take one for 90 minutes since it would have been roughly the same experience. I've already wasted enough time writing about this awful movie, and I can't put it much more bluntly than I already have - there are no redeeming qualities to "Fun Size", so just don't see it...for any reason...ever.

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