Wonderful character development!

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

Every once in awhile, I'm up for a good hijinks movie. So, I decided to take my younger sister (who usually eats up anything Disney/Nick) to see this one the weekend before Halloween. I knew from the first 10-15 minutes that this was going to be mind-numbingly stupid, and even my sister agreed upon the film's conclusion that it just wasn't very good at all.For a basic plot summary, "Fun Size" sees teenage Wren (Victoria Justice) and her crazier friend April (Jane Levy) forced to babysit her younger brother Albert (Jackson Nicoll) on Halloween night instead of going to the "cool kids" party. When Albert goes missing, however, craziness ensues.There are two main problems with this movie:1. It has been absolutely done to death over the past few years (or since whenever "Superbad" came out). The whole "group of friends doing crazy things and getting involved in wacky situations" genre was copied and pasted time and time again after "Superbad", and now maybe has just gotten a bit stale.2. The main problem, though, is that such "hijinks flicks", as I like to call them, are usually made for a more mature audience. In the case of "Fun Size", though, the jokes are not "crude" enough for the older teens but a bit too "crude" for the younger teens. It is kind of like the film is stuck in limbo between potential audiences.I wish I could find anything good to say about this effort, but I really cannot. The acting is nothing special, the plot has no place in these kind of movies, and the overall message is so sappy that it is just too unrealistic to take seriously whatsoever.Thus, "Fun Size" can be avoided at all costs with no regret. Frankly put, it just doesn't have any one audience that will feel comfortable watching it.

Fun Size- *1/2 (out of four): There are more laughs and more fun in an episode of "Victorious" than in this farce of a film, which would have fared better had it been released straight to DVD. It is crudely written, the teenage qualms seem entirely artificial and clichéd. There are some funny and even sweet moments in it, but the bad outweighs the good here. It tries to pay homage to older (and better) teen flicks of the '80s, but it falls far short, emerging as little more than a comedy full of gags and stereotypical characters. It might be enjoyable for a small minority of people, but I'm sure most will be quite bored by it. Definitely one to skip.

Now here is one Fun-Sized flick that may get some parents in an uproar: "Fun Size" is an amusing 86-minute distraction from Nickelodeon Productions that's rated "PG-13" and that alone should caution some parents that this teen flick may not be all that appropriate for anyone - obviously - who is under the age of 13.For a brief 86 minutes, the "PG-13" rating actually means something again.But I digress. By virtue of the mere fact that it's produced by Nickelodeon, there are some misguided parents who will no doubt take their kids to see it anyway. Hence, the confusion over some irate parents who don't think it's appropriate for their young ones.I'm 27. I grew up when Nickelodeon was still catering almost exclusively to the entertainment demands of kids (and still had a smidgen of intelligence). Then during the mid-1990s, the channel began a massive face-palming descent into idiocy as it began replacing staples of its animated and live-action programming with idiotic crap. "Doug" and "Rugrats" soon gave way to "SpongeBob SquarePants" and "The Wild Thornberrys."The channel briefly redeemed itself with the Japanese Anime'-inspired animated fantasy-adventure series "Avatar: The Last Airbender" (and later its follow-up, "The Legend of Korra").In more recent years, however, Nickelodeon seems to be catering almost exclusively to the demands of teenagers, with shows like "iCarly," "Zoey 101," and "Victorious" ruling the airwaves; I actually really liked "iCarly" and "Victorious" - before Nick unceremoniously canceled them.And this is how we arrived at this new film from Josh Schwartz - the creator of "The O.C." and "Gossip Girl" who makes his directorial debut here, while working from Max Werner's screenplay. "Fun Size" takes equal bits of classic teen flicks such as "Sixteen Candles" (1984) and "Adventures in Babysitting" (1987). Whipsmart high school geeky nobody Wren (Victoria Justice, of the aforementioned "Victorious") gets invited to a Halloween-night bash headed by the hunky Aaron Riley (Thomas McDonnell), who has a habit of dressing up as the lead character from his favorite movies, in this case Johnny Depp's Capt. Jack Sparrow from the "Pirates of the Caribbean" film series.Her plans get sidetracked when her cradle-robbing widowed mother Joy (Chelsea Handler) gets invited to a grown-ups-only Halloween party of her own by her current immature man-boy obsession Keevin (John Pence). This means that Wren must now babysit her eight-year-old younger brother Albert (Jackson Nicoll), who hasn't spoken a single word in almost year, ever since the death of their father. But also like their father, Albert still maintains a strong penchant for crude pranks and general raising hell whenever the opportunity presents itself.Things get complicated when trick-or-treating during the course of the night, Albert winds up missing (thus becoming the unlikely companion of a slightly miffed convenience store clerk named Fuzzy - played by Thomas Middleditch - on his Halloween-night quest of vengeance against his ex-girlfriend and her new boy-toy) and it's up to Wren, her best friend April (Jane Levy) and two nerdy classmates - Roosevelt (Thomas Mann, of "Project X") and Peng (Osric Chau) - to track him down and get him back home before her mother finds out. The story's central emotional tussle is Wren realizing her mutual attraction to her nerdy, E.O. Wilson-obsessed classmate Roosevelt - who actually understands her lousy jokes about not only biologist E.O. Wilson, but also Ruth Bader Ginsberg - rather than the hunky Aaron Riley."Fun Size" offers a nice performance from Victoria Justice as the high-strung, improbably gorgeous nerdy-girl Wren. And Thomas Mann turns in another great Everyman role (as he did in "Project X") as her true love Roosevelt. But of course, it's young Jackson Nicoll who has the most fun as Albert, the Tasmanian Devil eight-year-old kid from hell. "Fun Size" also does manage to produce some genuinely funny moments here & there, although some of these moments may fly over the heads of parents who may be shaking their heads at some of the cruder material. But that's why "Fun Size" is rated "PG-13," in addition to some decidedly rough language in more than a few spots. And then there's comedienne Chelsea Handler's Halloween get-up as a "Hit Me Baby One More Time"-era Britney Spears, attire she wears out of profound grief for the death of her husband.Lastly, there's also a nice twist near the end of the picture involving, all else, the Beastie Boys, from their "Licensed to Ill" era back in the mid-'80s."Fun Size" is 86 minutes of pure fun, fun, fun!8/10

This is one of those predictable and unoriginal family movie. It doesn't try to be overly safe but it's pretty predictable. The nice guy liking a girl but the girl is into this so called cool guy. Well in this case some wannabe Johnny Depp dude. But it doesn't revolve around that scenario much instead it's a modern day journey for a night for the protagonist girl to find his lost trouble-making younger brother. And the main protagonist is the only somewhat rational one while everyone else is a bit wacko. Yeah, this is one of those movies. I liked how everything comes together though even if it's done in a predictable and unoriginal manner. Like how the nerdy guy finally gets the courage to fight for his love and etc. It's watchable but there is better movies when it comes to these types of genre. But I give it credit for trying to be a family friendly movie. And it's humorous although when it comes to those moments it's very few.6/10