Fun Size

Sugar Rush

★ ★ ★ 1/2 out of 5 buckets | Matinee or Rental

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Rated: PG-13  Language, sexual references, adolescent hijinks

Release Date: October 26, 2012

Runtime: 1 hour 35 minutes

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Director: Josh Schwartz
Writers: Max Werner
Cast: Victoria Justice, Jackson Nicoll, Chelsea Handler, Jane Levy, Thomas Mann, Thomas McDonell, Osric Chau, Josh Pence

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SYNOPSIS: Wren's Halloween plans go awry when she's made to babysit her brother, who disappears into a sea of trick-or-treaters. With her best friend and two nerds at her side, she needs to find her brother before her mom finds out he's missing.

REVIEW: Gossip Girl and Chuck writer and first time director Josh Schwartz takes his stab at female teenage angst with a tale of Halloween hijinks. With a script from The Colbert Report writer Max Werner, Schwartz takes several teenage comedy concepts and wraps them up for the trick-or-treat season.

Wren (Victoria Justice, The First Time) and her best friend April (Jane Levy, the upcoming Evil Dead reboot) finally gets a chance to hang out with the cool kids when uber popular Aaron Riley (Thomas McDonell, Dark Shadows - 2012) invites them to his annual Halloween bash. Unfortunately, Wren's mother Joy (Chelsea Handler, This Means War) has other plans that involve Joy going to a party with her twenty-something boyfriend Keevin (Josh Pence, The Dark Knight Rises) and Wren saddled with taking her silent pudgy younger brother Albert (Jackson Nicoll, The Fighter) out trick-or-treating for the night. When Albert, dressed as an one-armed Spider-man, disappears in a local haunted house, Wren and April must hunt the pint-sized wall-crawler down with the help of nerds Roosevelt (Thomas Mann, Project X) and Peng (Osric Chau, 2012) and Roosevelt's moms' car.

Fun Size is an amalgam of so many teenage film concepts. Remember Jake Ryan and Porsche from Molly Ringwald's Sixteen Candles? Aaron Riley and his similar model luxury sports car could be from the same genetic material. Throw in an 'epic' party thrown at Aaron's house and the setting for the cool boy that all the other boys want to be and all the girl want to be with is complete. Add in a pretty girl Wren who doesn't think she's pretty, her selfish girlfriend April whose only goal is to get the epic party in order to raise her social status, and a couple outcast nerds who do not consider themselves nerds and must try to rise to the challenge of champions for the damsels they desire - and you have the classic teenage comedy formula flick!

Halloween is a fun-filled holiday of dress-up and sweets, a night where you shed your own skin for the night and masquerade as someone or something else. They say that you typically dress as someone opposite as who you really are. That is most true with mother Joy dresses as Brittney Spears in order to attend a party with her too-young boyfriend. And, of course, some of the young ladies shed their 'timid' demeanor in favor of anything with 'sexy' in the title. Sexy witch, sexy nun, sexy nurse - BFF April goes the classic, tasteful route as a sexy kitty. One thing about film created Halloween parties... you always see the best costumes ever! I will have to say that Fun Size does keep a little bit of realism with Albert's store-bought Spider-Man costume and novelty fake severed gory arm.

With any successful teenage angst-ridden movie, you have to have conflict and obstacles. Girl searching for true love? Check! Grownup responsibility that ends up with something lost? Check! Best friends with your best interest at heart, as long as it coincides with their own quest for higher social status? Check! Irresponsible youth adding to the overall hi-jinks? Check! Fun Size is not Superbad, but it is closer to films like Elizabeth Shue's Adventures in Babysitting (hey, there was a girl as Thor in that film!), Jonah Hill's The Sitter, or Judy Moody and the Not Bummer Summer. Fun Size is exactly what the title implies, a perfectly sized fun teenage film. Not enough for a sugar rush, but enough for a fun time with a little bit of heart.

Victoria Justice is great as the girl desperate to get out of the shadow of her mother's house and the constant reminders of a beloved father who had passed away. Future Evil Dead reboot 'Ash' Jane Levy channels her own version of Emma Stone with her scene stealing turn as the sexy cat best friend. Chelsea Handler, as Wren's mother, proves that mothers sometimes do not make any better decisions as the children they are charged to care for. The always quiet Albert, played by Jackson Nicoll, is funny just by staring at you and shaking his head. Besides Albert's antics, Thomas Middleditch's (The Campaign) Stop and Sip counter worker Fuzzy takes toilet paper revenge to a new level as he tries to reclaim his pride against a thug dressed as Dog the Bounty Hunter (Johnny Knoxville).

Fun Size is just the perfect sugary sweet size for a teenage spooky holiday romp. The film may have all the earmarks of dozen of other adolescent flicks, but this October party is just funny and sweet enough to not rot your teeth out.

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This Means War

Spy Against Spy

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Rated: PG-13  Some sexual content and action.
Release Date: February 17, 2012
Runtime: 1 hr 37 mins

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Director:  McG

Writers: Timothy Dowling, Simon Kinberg, Marcus Gautesen
Cast:  Reese Witherspoon, Chris Pine, Tom Hardy, Til Schweiger, Chelsea Handler, John Paul Ruttan, Angela Bassett, Rosemary Harris, Abigail Spencer

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SYNOPSIS:  After two top CIA operatives discover that they dating the same woman, they make a pact to let the best man win but look to outdo and undermine each other's romantic efforts at every turn.

REVIEW: Charlie Angels and Terminator: Salvation director McG comes back to the big screen for a action-packed romantic comedy, mixing covert CIA expertise and technology with a quirky love triangle.   Based on a screenplay by Timothy Dowling (Just Go With It, Role Models) and Simon Kinberg (Sherlock Holmes, the upcoming Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter) from a story by Dowling and Marcus Gautesen (Carboy), This Means War combines the kinetic style of McG's music video roots and television and big screen action efforts with Dowling's romantic comedy and Kinberg's action comedy chops.

FDR Foster (Chris Pine, Unstoppable) and Tuck (Tom Hardy, Warrior) are a top-notch CIA team, versed in extractions, surveillance, and all matter of wetwork. As close as brothers, FDR and Tuck are inseparable as teammates and friends. When they are relegated to desk duty after a botched operation in Hong Kong against Heinrich (Til Schweiger, New Year's Eve) and his brother, Tuck decides to take a run at online dating. He meets Lauren Scott (Reese Witherspoon, Water for Elephants) for lunch and finds an instant connection with her. Unfortunately, the same day, FDR runs into Lauren by accident and decides to pursue her as well. When FDR and Tuck discover that they are dating the same woman, they make a gentleman's agreement to not get in each other's way and let Lauren choice for herself who she wants to date. Of course, when jealousy gets the better of them, they both use their CIA resources to sabotage each other's efforts. In the meanwhile, Heinrich uses his own resources to smuggle into the country and take revenge on FDR and Tuck for what happened in Hong Kong.


McG does what he does best. Using the style he perfected with his directing efforts on Charlie's Angels and Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle, McG mixes and balances comedy and action perfectly with This Means War. Reese Witherspoon and Chelsea Handler provide the quick wit with their dialogue and interplay, Handler's married boring Trish verbally pushes Witherspoon's workaholic Lauren outside her comfort zone to pursue both FDR and Tuck in order to live vicariously through Lauren's escapades with the two men. On the other side of the relationship battle field, Pine's FDR and Hardy's Tuck use their capable physical prowess, innate intelligence, and government training to fill in the film's fast and fine action sequences with fun. Bring the two sides together and you get something as tasty as peanut butter and chocolate (as long as you are not allergic!). In fact, the best combination of action and comedy comes at the barrel's end of a paintball gun as Tuck tries win the flag against an army of pint-sized soldiers. 

The comedy is good and the action is good. The only way the film could have been better would have been upping the evil presence of Heinrich. As he plans to eliminate the duo who ruined his Pacific Rim plans Heinrich systematically makes his way closer to FDR and Tuck, but remains too much in the shadows to be much of a threat until almost too late in the film. Til Schweiger does shed the anxious father figure of New Year's Eve with a rough exterior and a steely glare.

Notable actresses make their way onto set for This Means War. Angela Bassett (Jumping the Broom) cameos as CIA superior Collins. Rosemary Harris replaces her Aunt May role from Sam Raimi's Spider-man film trilogy to appear as FDR's matriarch Nana Foster, serving as the example for Tuck and FDR for how to live a fulfilled existence with a life partner. Tuck certainly takes her example to heart, longing for a new meaningful relationship with Lauren after a sad divorce from ex-wife Katie (Abigail Spencer, Cowboys & Aliens).

This Means War is a fun, romantic, light thrill-ride. Part romantic comedy, part action comedy, This Means War is all fun. McG infuses plenty of action gunplay to counter the romantic foreplay, making this film a worthwhile covert operation of heart extraction.

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WORTH: Matinee or DVD