Fun Size comes out today, a new teen movie with a winning cast (Jane Levy, Victoria Justice, Chelsea Handler, Johnny Knoxville), that looks like it could become a teen classic. The trailer looks fun, it’s directed by Josh Schwartz of Gossip Girl fame and everyone loves a good Halloween movie, but the critics are SLAMMING it.
Well, most critics. What is weird is that the more respected critics seem to love it. Just look at some of these reviews:
“Movie merits include a good cast, a tidy script and jokes just provocative enough.” – NY Times
“The fun to be had in Fun Size, a ‘tween comedy featuring Victoria Justice of the Nickelodeon TV series Victorious, is neither gigantic nor minuscule; it’s just about fun size, which is probably enough. And if you think that movies aimed at young adults are automatically less sophisticated than those made for alleged grown-ups, 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.” – NPR
“Directed by Gossip Girl’s Josh Schwartz and written by The Colbert Report’s Max Werner, the film sometimes seems to assume prior knowledge on our part when introducing characters and situations. It has a certain no-nonsense briskness that suggests it knows it’s a teen movie and doesn’t want to waste time with the usual horseshit of telling us who’s who and what their relationships are. Imagine that bit of mental jujitsu for a second: a movie that uses its very conventionality as an asset.’ – NY Mag
Then there are these critics (the majority), who really, REALLY hate this movie:
“The film, itself a Nickelodeon product, is rated PG-13 and therefore is out to ensnare every preteen paying customer it can find. But 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.” – Chicago Tribune
“As Wren, the brunette Justice has a serene beauty not unlike Minka Kelly’s, but she can’t sell a joke and her dorky comic rap scene (about Wilson, the naturalist) is painful to endure. The one thing she is good at is looking sad, on a visit to her dad’s grave, but I credit the director with that aspect. It must have been easy to create the proper mood by waiting until the cameras rolled and shouting out, ‘Hey, kid, bad news for your career: We just found out this movie is actually going to be released.’” – NY Post
How on Earth is a teen movie so polarizing?
We, of course, will still be seeing it this weekend.
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