A 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.

A hilarious film for anyone who remembers lying as a kid-- and anyone who wants to see a movie that's just plain fun.

An innocent comedic revenge fantasy that somehow manages to be sweet and wickedly satisfying at the same time.

The film gets snaps just by attempting the high road, and should be enjoyed by its target audience.

A harmless and mildly amusing family comedy.

Fresh-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.

The 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.

Plays so flat, so to close its "movie message" formula, that it seems as if we've seen this movie before.

If Ms. Bynes keeps going in this direction, she can conceivably develop a gallery of characters as rich and varied as Tracey Ullman's.

Generally succeeds. But with just a bit more effort the movie might have been funnier and a lot more fun.

Big 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.

Not so admirably, the film feels at times like a giant commercial for Universal Studios.

Screenwriter 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.

The movie scores some laughs, all of which come from the expert Giamatti.