Big Fat Liar Review
by Jon Popick (jpopick AT sick-boy DOT com)February 6th, 2002
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The target demographic of Big Fat Liar and its two stars - Frankie Muniz and Amanda Bynes - probably aren't old enough to remember television's Head of the Class, the show about a gaggle of whip-smart high school kids (taught by Howard Hesseman) who were too dumb to cope with real-life problems. A few of you might remember Robin Givens, but not many bothered committing Brian Robbins and Dan Schneider to memory - they were, respectively, the tough kid and the fat kid, and they're also the creative force behind Liar and both television shows (All That and The Amanda Show) that put Bynes on the map (okay, maybe somewhere near the map).
Other than that, Class doesn't have a thing in common with Liar. I mention it only because I don't feel like writing about Liar. Perhaps it has something to do with my visit to the doctor for what I thought was the flu but turns out to be a terminal case of Munizitis. Yeah, apparently I'm just sick of the kid. I mean, all a guy wants to do is stay home and whack it to Jessica Alba during Dark Angel, only to be terrified into flaccidity by the increasingly freaky-looking Muniz, who seems to be in every commercial currently airing on television. There he is pitching Doritos. There's an ad for a special episode of Malcolm in the Middle. Oh, great - there's another promo for Liar. Muniz is even on American Movie Classics, where he introduces episodes of The Little Rascals every night, which, I swear, I do not use as masturbatory material.
Jesus, that's only two paragraphs. What else can I talk about besides Liar? Oh, there are the other connections to kiddie stuff, like Robbins and Schneider making another feature (Good Burger) with two of their All That stars (Keenan and Kel). Director Shawn Levy is a veteran of children's television and was a Director's Guild Award nominee for Nickelodeon's The Secret World of Alex Mack, which featured - tah-dah! - a then-unknown Jessica Alba. Hey, this rambling stream-of-conscience thing is really coming together now!
Liar is a new take on The Boy Who Cried Wolf, with Muniz playing Jason Shepherd, a slacker from Greenbury, Michigan who would rather make up stories for why he didn't brush his teeth than actually brush his teeth. When he neglects to complete an important English paper that's worth one-third of his final grade, Jason races to finish before his teacher's extended deadline and, in the process, meets slick Hollywood producer Marty Wolf (Paul Giamatti, Storytelling), who steals Jason's paper (called "Big Fat Liar") and turns it into a big summer blockbuster.
This obviously doesn't sit too well with Jason, whose teacher and parents don't believe his story about Wolf and his English-paper-turned-screenplay. So he and best friend Kaylee (Bynes) head to California, take the Universal Studios tour, hop out when they see Wolf's production office, and proceed to make his life a living hell with the intention of forcing him to come clean about the movie's origin. That's all Jason wants - not a cut of the overseas gross or something like that. He isn't an overachiever, which is kind of refreshing.
There isn't really much else to say, other than the fact I find it difficult to believe Jason has a friend as hot as Kaylee when he doesn't even bother to brush his teeth. There are a bunch of little roles filled by people who are sort of famous (Donald Faison, Amanda Detmer), or used to be sort of famous (Jaleel White, Lee Majors). There are a few funny bits, and a lot of references to Hollywood that kids probably aren't going to get. Overall, it's a pretty mediocre family film - not as good as Monsters, Inc. but nowhere near as bad as Pokémon.
1:35 - PG for some language
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