Fun Size

To make a long story short, anxiety has gotten the better of me and has forced me to restructure a lot of my life.  The last two weeks have been extremely hard, and with it seeming that things were going to get worse, I had to make some pretty drastic alterations to my day to day life.  It ended up being a very long day of work and then talking to a bunch of different health professionals, and that sort of thing can tire even the most robust person out.  Today's review is one that I wrote a little bit ago, and it is for a film called Fun Size and was produced by Nickelodeon Movies.  Why is this movie (which can be found on Netflix) relevant?  Well, really it is not.  But the young boy in it co-stars in Bad Grandpa which came out this past weekend, so there is some weak level of relevance.  Oh, and it's about Halloween, so there's the relevance.

If you were ever dreaming of a movie that was a cross between Adventures in Babysitting and Baby’s Day Out set around Halloween with socially conscious teen-age girls who rely on the help of nerdy boys (would could completely ruin their reputation if they be seen with such scallywags), then you may believe that Fun Size is the movie for you.  And basically it is, but solely because it fits that specific list of criteria that few (if any) other movies fit into.

Fun Size is a story of Wren (Victoria Justice) who has recently lost her father due to death (I cannot quite remember how he died), has a mother who is robbing the cradle with a fellow named Keevin (not a typo), with a little brother who no longer speaks (a cliché device for a character if ever there was one), and a friend named April played by Jane Levy.  Wren hopes to go to the Halloween party of ever so dreamy Aaron Riley, but her plans get put on hold when her mother asks her to take her brother out to gather his Halloween candies from the neighbours.  Along the way, she loses her brother and is tossed into situations of shenanigans on the path to getting him back.

It may seem as though I am not giving a lot of respect to the plot of the movie, and truth be told I am not.  It is rather formulaic, and moves along at a predictable pace with characters that are hard to have much feelings towards as they seem mostly un-relatable.  The movie should be geared towards young folk, but disperses some sexual humour that parents may find inappropriate such as a scene of a totally consensual yet altogether awkward breast grabbing for a predetermined time of twenty seconds.  It is a standard case of missing the mark for its intended audience.  The movie also happens in a world where people find a young child out on their own and, instead of calling the police, involve them in their miss-adventures of revenge or bring them into a night club for some dancing.

While a movie like this is usually fodder for scathing comments (and perhaps it does deserve some), I would rather focus on some of the positives that keep this movie from being a generic waste of time and/or money.  Fun Size does have a few moments and aspects of a good movie, and I feel that it should get some recognition for those as most movies of similar quality have mediocre qualities at best.

The casting may not be great across the board, but there were some quality decisions that made for a few relatable or enjoyable characters.  Chelsea Handler did a good job of playing Wren’s mother, who was at a crux in dealing with the full emotional remains of her late husband’s passing.  Jane Levy was great at a social status obsessed friend, and she can be a bright spot in many a suffering movie.  Most recently she brought some fun to Evil Dead as she battled the apocalypse with one hand and a chainsaw, all while quitting the drugs cold turkey and going through withdrawal.  The best casting was for the dual mothers of Roosevelt (the nerdy friend of Wren’s) played by Kerri Kenney and Ana Gasteyer, who were both hilarious in witty caricature roles.

There were also moments where the film seemed to rise above the early standards it set for itself, and brought scenes of terrific humour.  There were around five times where I was not only smiling, but laughing deep from my potato and egg filled belly.  It was in those moments that I had a strong hope for what may lay around the next corner for our protagonist.

Unfortunately for the cast and crew of Fun Size, laughing five times at a movie and then forgetting most of the premise the next day (such as how the father died) does not equal a quality film.  While it does have moments of personality, charm, and wit, those moments are scattered throughout with very little piecing them together.  As stated earlier, if you are looking for a movie that is a cross between Adventures in Babysitting and Baby’s Day Out set around Halloween with socially conscious teen-age girls who rely on the help of nerdy boys, then Fun Size is the movie for you.  If you are simply looking for a decent movie, pick any film at random and the chances are good that it may be a better use of your time.

Rating - 1.5 out of 4 stars