Big Fat Liar

Basically a junior high school Home Alone-meets-Ferris Bueller's Day Off set on a Hollywood backlot, Big Fat Liar stars Frankie Muniz (Malcolm in the Middle) as a seventh-grader whose penchant for fabulous fibs results in no one believing his story that a weasel movie producer (Paul Giamatti) swiped his homework and turned his essay into a summer blockbuster. So, during an unsupervised weekend, he and his cutie-pie best friend (Amanda Bynes) hop a plane to Hollywood to exact high jinks-filled revenge and set the record straight. The usual weakly scripted kid flick clichés abound, of course, but the film is kept afloat by Muniz's appeal and by the screwball performance of Giamatti (Planet of the Apes, Big Momma's House, Man on the Moon), who is hilarious as the ego-mad, ugly-plaid, thinks-he's-bad movie magnate, so desperate for a hit he'll stoop to stealing story ideas from a kid. A strong optional purchase. [Note: DVD extras include limited guidance through the menus by star Amanda Bynes; commentaries by director Shawn Levy and by star Frankie Muniz; a Spotlight on Location 11-minute featurette; nearly 15 minutes of deleted scenes; a movie trivia challenge (which is rewarded with a brief easter egg); a Universal Studios Back Lot map that leads to clips; the "Are You a Big Fat Liar" 10-question quiz; special features for the Spyro video game (including a cheat code); and DVD-ROM features. Bottom line: a solid extras package for an okay kid flick.] (R. Blackwelder)