Steve Pulaski
I've been making something of a mental checklist to revisit movies from my childhood that I was supposed to see when I was roughly seven or so but evaded in favor of more obscure pictures that I really wasn't supposed to watch at that age. Such films are The Lizzie McGuire Movie, Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen, the two Agent Cody Banks films, and many others that strike a nostalgia chord with me solely because they came out right around the time I was immersing myself in film.Shawn Levy's Big Fat Liar is a film I watched as a young child in pieces. I'd watch and digest maybe twenty minutes at a time - over the course of several months - before I could say I saw the entire film. Sitting through it today, in its eighty-seven entirety, it is not the immature affair I expected it to be. In fact, it's kind of spirited and lively, to the point where I find myself replaying sequences in my head, ones I didn't laugh at before, and now silently giggle at their geniality and the silliness they employ.One particular scene comes later in the film, where Paul Giamatti's character has already been manipulated unconditionally by Frankie Muniz and Amanda Bynes to the point where he is ready to call the day quits entirely. He gets in his beautiful, expensive car, only to discover all of his gadgets and functions have been rewired. The brake is the horn, the turn signal is the radio, etc. While Giamatti is pressing random buttons and twisting/turning random gizmos in his car, hoping in vein something works, his radio blasts the infectious song "I'm Blue" by Eiffel 65 and angers other drivers around him. The scene is so goofy and unexpected that the only rational response is to laugh and embrace the current situation.I'll catch you up; Jason Shepherd (Frankie Muniz) is a fourteen year old boy, known by his family and teacher as a pathological liar who enjoys dreaming up ways to get himself out of trouble. One day, he doesn't write his English paper on time, so is given a time extension, which he utilizes efficiently to write a semi-autobiographical story called "Big Fat Liar." He races to school on his sister's bright pink bike (the bullies stole his skateboard), and crashes into the limousine of Marty Wolf (Paul Giamatti), a cocky, wealthy movie producer. He reluctantly agrees to give Jason a ride, but Jason finds, after spilling the contents of his backpack in Wolf's limo, he left the essay in the company of Wolf.Wolf, currently in a career slump with failure after failure, reads "Big Fat Liar," loves it, and decides it deserves a film-counterpart on the big screen. Without Jason's approval or consent, Wolf hurries the film into production, leaving Jason understandably upset and cheated. He decides, in an act of desperation, him and his close friend Kaylee (Amanda Bynes) will pack up their things and head out to California to get Wolf to admit to his parents that he stole the idea from him in an attempt to earn back his parents trust.In summation, Jason and Kaylee pretty much make Wolf's life a living hell, first by putting blue dye in his pool water and orange dye in his shampoo, giving him the appearance of a ginger-Smurf. They continue to manipulate him with torturous actions, like the one I wrote about above, hoping Wolf will crack and admit his wrongdoing. They team up with other actors-turned-employees for the arrogant producer, who relish the thought of exacting revenge on him for his terrible treatment of coworkers.This kind of plot is the perfect definition of "serviceable." It doesn't look to offend, provides maybe a good, healthy laugh or too, and then allows you to go about your day with almost nothing to further contemplate or feast on. There's good and bad to that; in a world where the bar for children's films have been raised by the likes of Pixar, something like Big Fat Liar isn't necessary in their cinematic diet. The film was written by Dan Schneider, who has been the driving force behind nearly every teen-sitcom on Nickelodeon. Big Fat Liar plays almost identically to an episode of, say, Drake and Josh. Some jokes are funny, some fall flat, and you're left with an average episode that wasn't a burden but not an explosive winner.Muniz and Bynes, however, have great chemistry, and there are unfortunately a depressing shortage of their gracious performances today, which is kind of a shame. The two had careers that seemed to end before they started, especially Muniz, who seemed to be disposed-of by the public after Malcolm in the Middle came to a close and Agent Cody Banks 2: Destination London was released. The real performance to watch here, on the other hand, is Giamatti's, who is extremely funny and off-the-wall as a venomous movie producer, who may in fact just be nicer than real Hollywood producers. His transcend into lunacy and madness, especially in the third act, is wonderful and is played off effectively thanks to great comic-timing and spirit on his part.Big Fat Liar is not a film I'd recommend to adults. No one over ten will express much interest in seeing the film, but for the brave souls who do, for nostalgic reasons or curiosity reasons, the film is at least smart enough to show you a good, marginally-creative time. There's a pleasantly kind soul to its roots and an entertaining series of events that unfold, even if you're expecting them.Starring: Frankie Muniz, Amanda Bynes, Paul Giamatti. Directed by: Shawn Levy.
yellinglady-0
Big Fat Liar is pretty much a lie from the start. At the menu screen, you see a girl so you'd think she's the main character, but she's not. So the movie starts up with a 14 year old boy named Jason who lies all the time. He doesn't do his paper so he has to turn it late. Along the way, he meets up with a director who happens to be filming a movie where Urkel is a cop with his partner as a chicken. The kid leaves his paper in the limo of the director and he turns it into a movie. Jason then goes to Hollywood and steals, vandalizes, and lies more in order to learn that lying is wrong. Oh and instead of planning how to get the director to admit he stole the film from Jason, he and the girl have a 2 minute montage on them trying on clothes. They eventually find everyone who hates the director and ruin his career. So remember kids, lie, vandalize, and steal and someday, you too can have a bad movie yourself!
bob_meg
It's hard to hate on a movie that has a blue-dunked Paul Giamatti rocking out to Duran Duran's Hungry Like the Wolf. It's not so hard to hate on the standard Disney kids-against-the-mean-adults Home Alone booby trap nonsense.Big Fat Liar manages somehow to walk the tightrope between those two extremes quite well, never OD'ing us on anything particularly tiresome. Seeing the trailer for the movie, it seemed to be one long torture fest for Giamatti, who plays the dirtbag slimeball producer trope for all its worth (and overall looks to be having fun with it).It's strength really comes (shockingly) from its two leads. As Jason, Frankie Muniz combines just enough breezy charisma and ah-shucks appeal to perform his Ferris Bueller gag quite well, but the really impressive stuff comes from Amanda Bynes, who delivers some truly hilarious vocal impressions, usually when on the phone.This is all really tame stuff, will not change the world or ruin it (or the art of film) in any way. It's a good genre picture and can be enjoyed for just what it is, a trifle...which actually, is not that easy to come by these days.
