Big Fat Liar

Malcolm (Frankie Muniz) is in the middle of an implausible but fun and ludicrous Home Alone kind of Saturday morning popcorn flick for 9-year olds who need to escape from their intense third-grade woes. Here, the sitcom star goes to Hollywood as the boy who cried wolf and needs to prove to his used-to-proud pop that a slumming bigwig film producer (Paul Giamatti) stole his ticket out of summer school and transformed it into a big budget summer blockbuster. But when the pompous producer refuses to fess up, little Muniz infiltrates Universal Studios to pull several Macaulay Culkin-like pranks from orange dye in the shampoo bottle to rewiring the convertible BMW. Director Shawn Levy creates endless situations that could and would never happen, a supporting cast of caricatures, and an Erkel cop with a crime-fighting poultry sidekick, but the three-time Golden-Globe nominee makes a decent transition from TV to film that will hold the audience and keep them entertained throughout.