Disney films are all about story. They have fun, but only insofar as their stories get told effectively. Nickelodeon films, however, are all about fun.
As put by Rob Moore, vice chair for Nickelodeon Movies’ parent Paramount, “Fun Size” offers several different flavors of fun, so as to change Nickelodeon’s image to “something not just for children but for everyone, including children” (read: more Disney).
But rather than let humor grow organically from an age-indiscriminate story, the filmmakers serve up a hodgepodge of farce, slapstick and innuendo that makes kids scratch their heads and parents roll their eyes.
With brief flashes of humor that either sail over children’s heads or sink below adults’ standards, “Fun Size” winds up as a confused mess.
You enter a very family-friendly universe when you enter this movie. High school bullies give wedgies; their worst insults are “nerd” and “dork;” and there’s not a single illegal drug to be found at their parties. Naturally, you brace yourself for cute one-liners and poop jokes.
Instead, you get lesbian stereotypes with macrame Obama tributes, self-disrespectful antics from Wren’s single mother and an unsettling arousal scene involving the touching of a breast. It all feels offbeat and, more importantly, not for children.
But just when you think this is an adult’s movie disguised as a kiddie flick, you get the poop jokes. All of them seem unnatural to the plot, and few ever land.
In the end, kids’ laughter entails parents’ boredom, and vice versa. “Fun Size” is very little fun after all.
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