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 Director
:Shawn Levy
Starring
: Frankie Muniz, Paul Giamatti, Amanda Bynes, Amanda Detmer,
Donald Faison, Lee Majors, Sandra Oh.
Picture
4:3 Fullscreen, DD and DTS 5.1, Dual-Layer, Keep Case
Running
Time : 87 mins
The
story:
Two
friends are about to cut one Hollywood big shot down to
size.
Jason
Shepherd (Frankie Muniz) has a reputation as a liar which
has never done him any harm in the past. But when it comes
to a exam results and his test paper goes missing, who's
going to believe it was taken by a Hollywood producer and
turned into a hit movie? Jason's has to prove his story
is true, so with the help of his best friend Kaylee (Amanda
Bynes) they set off to Hollywood in search of the sleazy
producer Marty Wolf (Paul Giamatii). But as Wolf has taken
the credit for writing the film, he's none too keen to make
public the truth behind the writing credit. Jason and Kaylee
however have a plan up their sleeve..
The
summary:
Starring Frankie Muniz from "Malcolm In the Middle"
and Amanda Bynes of Nickelodeon fame, it's pretty obvious
from the outset that this film is targeted almost exclusively
at the younger audience. So with that in mind, we'll try
not to put the simple plot under too much scrutiny. It's
geared towards laughs, done in a way that the younger audience
can relate to, hence the inclusion of the 'cool' Amanda
Detmer. I guess we get the 6-Million Dollar Man Lee Majors
so all's fair at the end of the day! Actually I found the
film rather enjoyable, albeit in a silly way. It's really
not what I imagined and I mean that in the nicest of ways.
It's fast-paced and full of slapstick pranks so there's
really not a dull moment. All in all, its a good old fashioned
story of a kid making it big in an adult world (think Home
Alone).
Paul
Giamatti is wonderful as the mean and big-egoed Hollywood
producer, even though he spends much of the film with a
blue face and red hair! He's the star of the show and would
make a great clown in real life. Frankie Muniz plays the
loveable scoundrel Jason in a cutsey way. He almost seems
a little too young for his role (but I'm far too old to
judge that..) and Amanda Bynes adds some sanity and and
air of calmness to it all. In fact it's the performances
that really make the film, which would otherwise could have
been a dull affair. It's daft but it's fun and it'll definitely
appeal to the family audiences out there.
The
disc itself is a bit of a mixed affair - whilst it's well
presented (the menu's are impressively introduced by Amanda
Bynes) and features a fair amount of extras, the decision
to make this a fullscreen release is baffling. I know Universal
are keen to release separate widescreen and fullscreen versions
of their films, but to have ONLY a fullscreen release is
absurd. Yeah okay, whilst the transfer itself looks fine,
it's not going to be of interest to the majority of widescreen
TV-owning DVD fans. Hopefully Universal will come to their
senses and quickly issue a widescreen release - if not then
it would take a brave decision to release a fullscreen version
in Europe, so we'll await the region two release with interest.
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Extras:
*
Audio Commentary #1 - This first
commentary is with Director Shawn Levy who gives a little
insight into the film. Quite a poor commentary really but
still the better of the two.
*
Audio Commentary #2- The second
commentary features Frankie Muniz and is possibly aimed
at the kids though I personally can't see them sitting through
a feature-length commentary. Frankie becomes quite irritating
very early on in the commentary so it's probably wise to
skip this one.
*
Deleted/Extended Scenes - A collection
of scenes including deleted and extended versions of existing
scenes. There's not really anything worthwhile here and
they were obviously dropped for good reason. 14 mins.
*
The Making-Of Big Fat Liar - This
is pure promotional material featuring Shawn Levy and the
stars of the film. Included is behind-the-scenes footage
and some brief snippets from the cast. 11 mins.
*
Trailer - The theatrical trailer..
in widescreen!
*
Production Notes - Text-based
production notes.
*
Universal Studios Backlot Adventure
- This is a map of Universal Studios featuring several locations.
Select the location and it jumps to the relevant scene in
the film.
*
Filmography's- Cast & crew
filmography's.
*
Trivia Challenge - A fun multiple
choice quiz featuring outtake clips.
*
Are You a Big Fat Liar? - Answer
the ten questions and find out if you're a Big Fat Liar.
*
Spyro Extras - Some ads and bits
for the PS2 game "Spyro:Enter the Dragon".
*
DVD-ROM - Links to the Spyro website
and some other Universal links.
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