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75A surprisingly entertaining movie -- one of those good-hearted comedies like "Spy Kids" where reality is put on hold while bright teenagers outsmart the best and worst the adult world has to offer. It's ideal for younger kids, and not painful for their parents.
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70A hilarious film for anyone who remembers lying as a kid-- and anyone who wants to see a movie that's just plain fun.
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70An innocent comedic revenge fantasy that somehow manages to be sweet and wickedly satisfying at the same time.
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67The film gets snaps just by attempting the high road, and should be enjoyed by its target audience.
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63A harmless and mildly amusing family comedy.
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60Fresh-faced leads Muniz and Bynes are charmers, Giamatti makes Wolf into a splendidly loathsome adversary, and the film is refreshingly free of bodily function jokes.
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50Plays so flat, so to close its "movie message" formula, that it seems as if we've seen this movie before.
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50The result is a children's movie that's almost worth seeing even when not accompanied by a child. It's certainly a painless experience, and at times it's quite funny.
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50Not so admirably, the film feels at times like a giant commercial for Universal Studios.
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50Big Fat Liar becomes a progression of increasingly elaborate slapstick stunts, in the brutal, noisy "Home Alone" vein, in which the complexity of the pranks rarely yields a commensurate comic reward.
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50Generally succeeds. But with just a bit more effort the movie might have been funnier and a lot more fun.
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50If Ms. Bynes keeps going in this direction, she can conceivably develop a gallery of characters as rich and varied as Tracey Ullman's.
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40The movie scores some laughs, all of which come from the expert Giamatti.
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40Screenwriter Dan Schneider and director Shawn Levy substitute volume and primary colors for humor and bite. Granted, it's a kids' flick, but kids today have enough savvy about the movie industry to report for Variety.
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38Offers little in the way of pleasure, even to its target audience -- the easily pleased and undemanding.
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38What starts as a cute premise crashes faster than a skateboard with an oak branch shoved between its wheels.
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25There are lame comedies, and then there is Big Fat Liar, which is so lame that it merits its own reserved parking space.
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25Loud and unfunny, this cheesy-looking farce is mostly an excuse for a series of plugs.
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25A lame collection of dumber-than-dumb gags, the quality of Big Fat Liar is on par with that of the worst television sit-com gorged to four times its normal size.
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25How appealing is Muniz, taking a break from ''Malcolm in the Middle,'' a day job he should by no means let go of?
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20Old people are made to look ridiculous; clowns are brutalized; characters talk in rapid-fire vaudeville shtick.
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20Big Fat Liar's screenplay, co-written by Robbins and fellow Head Of The Class alumnus Dan Schneider, is a model of comic inefficiency. Like a Rube Goldberg contraption, it goes to excruciating, wildly implausible lengths for the flimsiest of payoffs.
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20Though Muniz and Bynes make a somewhat likable team, their funniest skills are dampened by the material's insistent stupidity.
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10A bland, obnoxious 88-minute infomercial for Universal Studios.
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User score distribution:
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Positive: 18 out of 19
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Mixed: 0 out of 19
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Negative: 1 out of 19
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8The unexpected plot direction and great performances pay off and this is actually a smart movie that families can enjoy.