Fun Size

The movie is, by and large, smarter than the gross-out tactics that pass for hilarity in many mainstream adult comedies. Read full review

Movie merits include a good cast, a tidy script and jokes just provocative enough. Read full review

The fundamental Schwartz touch applies: In the guise of a narrowly targeted tween flick, he has delivered a smart and emotionally satisfying slice of wish fulfillment, tracing how a threatened family finds harmony. Read full review

Bear in mind that Fun Size is the only comedy in recent memory to feature a Ruth Bader Ginsburg joke. You won't find any of those in the "Hangover" movies' bag of tricks. Read full review

It pairs modern attitude with John Hughesian tropes, and it's odd enough, in spurts, to boast originality. Read full review

Compared to most teen comedies these days, Fun Size is almost touchingly tame. Read full review

Still, it's hard not to think that there's a darker, funnier movie in there waiting to get out. In the meantime, we'll always have the humping chicken. Read full review

By the end of this romp, Fun Size actually accomplished something charming: sentimentality without normality. Read full review

Well written but weakly executed, it's hard to imagine anyone is going to cherish the film, if they even remember it in three months' time. Read full review

Transiently entertaining, with intermittent sparks, it'll do until something better comes along. Read full review

Imagine "Little Miss Sunshine's" dark materials (and superior craftsmanship) diluted with a Hannah Montana-like sunny silliness – which is to say: sometimes funny, often broad-stroked, ever sweet, and landing shy of its potential. Read full review

The cast try hard and are rewarded with some zesty dialogue, but remain shackled to the girl-with-dead-dad-grows-up formula. Read full review

Fun Size isn't good enough to ascend to those John Hughesian ranks, and its small holiday window means it won't scarf much box office. But at least first time feature director Josh Schwartz can expect a minor slumber party hit on DVD. Read full review

This Nickelodeon production may be designed for short attention spans, but must the characters have them as well? Read full review

Of course, questionable propriety would be a moot point if the film were consistently funny, but its hit-to-miss ratio is dire. Read full review

Fun is hiding behind a bad movie costume in this humorless and idiotic Halloween teen comedy. Read full review

All over the map in the details it throws at us, and the level of immaturity it aims for. Read full review

Aiming for a trifecta of small kids, their older sisters and parents in the audience, Fun Size fails them all in a movie that is neither a trick nor a treat. Read full review

A laborious comedy about a Halloween night in Cleveland that feels too grown up in half of its storylines to suit younger audiences, and too juvenile or nonsensical in the rest of its gags to please anyone else. Read full review

This movie has no courage and little brains, and is salvaged, if at all, only by its heart. There remains a huge market for a great Halloween teen comedy, but Fun Size is the disappointing apple that your crazy-haired neighbor gives you instead of candy. Read full review

There is something admirable about Fun Size. Not in how it succeeds, because it doesn't. Whoo, boy, it doesn't. Rather, in how bad it is on so many levels, in how it will offend and disappoint different segments of its audience for different reasons. It's an equal-opportunity bad movie. Something to hate for everyone! [25 Oct 2012]

A 90-minute theatrical release from Nickelodeon Productions that, if anything, should have aired as a half-hour Nickelodeon special. Read full review

Someday, all US cinema may come to look like this: indifferently shot random events happening to semi-recognisable TV faces. Read full review

Molly Ringwald-like, Wren must choose between two guys: the nerdy Roosevelt (Thomas Mann) and the Porsche-driving Aaron (Thomas McDonell), but both are so dull it's hard to care. So feeble is the movie that even the wacky, redheaded best friend (Jane Levy) isn't funny. Read full review

It's a soul-crusher, and when I say it may be the most dehumanizing experience since "Hostel: Part II" the comparison is not an idle one. Read full review