Kidzworld reviews the teen romp FUN SIZE, out now on Blu-ray and DVD.
By: Lynn Barker
You are a high schooler who finally gets invited to THE party of the year thrown by your crush. Then, you are stuck baby-sitting your obnoxious little brother. How do we make this work for us?
Story Goes:
Smart, pretty high schooler Wren DeSantis (Victoria Justice) is crushing on hot and cute musician Aaron Riley (Thomas McDonnell of Disney’s Prom movie) and is really dying to get an invite to his A-list Halloween party. So is her best friend April ("Suburgatory"'s Jane Levy). When hottie Aaron invites Wren and says he has written a song about her, she’s over-the-moon excited. Not so much her pal Roosevelt (Beautiful Creatures’ Thomas Mann) since he has a secret crush on her.
Alice, Wren and Albert go trick-or-treating
On the night of the party, Wren’s mom (wacky Chelsea Handler), a recent widow trying to rebuild her life, decides to party bigtime with her much younger boyfriend and that leaves Wren to take her obnoxious little bro Albert (Jackson Nicoll) trick-or-treating. Total heartbreak!
Mom (Chelsea Handler) parties
Little Albert, dressed as a special needs Spider-Man (with one arm missing) takes off on his own adventure, leaving Wren and April desperately trying to find him and still make the party. Roosevelt and his pal Peng (Osric Chau) team up with the girls to find Albert, leading to embarrassment as the gang cruises the strip in Roosevelt’s moms’ ancient Volvo. Meanwhile, Albert has made a new friend in store clerk Fuzzy (Thomas Middleditch) and the two have their own crazy Halloween mishap adventures. With danger as well as mortifying adventures piling up by the minute, will Wren and April ever make the party?
Victoria Justice as Wren
Special Features
Unwrapped: The Making of FUN SIZE – The cast talks about shooting the film in Cleveland in the summer while they are trying to pretend it’s cold Halloween time. It’s the first movie for a lot of the cast, many of whom are TV veterans. Lots of time with each cast member as they describe their characters, cracking up on set etc. Also included are various on set attempts to perfect the funny scene in which a giant chicken statue falls on Roosevelt’s Volvo. Basic fun.
Pang and Roosevelt dressed for Halloween
Gag Reel – Things breaking, stunts messing up, lines flubbed, silly but fun.
Deleted Scenes – a few good ones. Aaron comes over to flirt with Wren..more about the lame song he’s writing for her, Fuzzy gets dumped and almost run over, Pang tells girls about his adventure shooting a chicken drumstick out of a bully’s hand, Chelsea Handler (Mom) leaves a wild party and dumps her younger boyfriend.
Jackson Nicoll: Trouble Sized – zeros in on the feisty young actor playing Wren’s little bro Albert. We see a bit of his pranks on set and the cast talks about him. He’s sort of the male Honey Boo Boo and is into slapping girls on the fanny! Okay, he’s annoying but still kinda cute.
Jackson Nicoll as Albert
Music Video: “This Kiss” by Carly Rae Jepsen – very danceable as she and her BFFs are out on the town. Thomas McDonnell appears in the video and she’s after another cute guy.
The Making of “This Kiss” – is more Carly Rae on the various sets of her video with the director. Carly talks about the concept/story behind the girls’ night out video. Fun if you are into the video or Carly.
Wrapping Up:
With its PG-13 rating, expect this teens-on-the-town movie to be a bit more risqué and more true to life and true to modern teens than the squeaky clean High School Musical films. This one really isn’t for kids under 13.
Giant chicken sign attacks the Volvo!
FUN SIZE suffers from being not quite gross or raunchy enough for fans of films like American Pie and maybe too risqué for the younger crowd. Some of the jokes are very funny, others fall flat. The cast does a nice job in their roles and you might get a kick out of the physical/visual humor. This one isn’t great but the extras are fun and it is collectable if you are a Victoria Justice fan and certainly rentable for some laughs on a sleepover night if you aren’t. We’ll go three stars.
FUN SIZE Blu-ray Rating: 
FUN SIZE blu-ray cover
