Big Fat Liar on DVD

by Jim Bray

Here's a revenge flick that doesn't offer gratuitous violence – and in fact is an entertaining film that's suitable for the whole family.

Unfortunately, it leaves a lot to be desired as a DVD since it's offered only in the inferior Pan&Scan format that slices the edges off the screen so people with 4x3 aspect ratio TV's will think they're getting the whole picture.

They couldn't be more wrong.

Big Fat Liar stars Frankie Muniz as Jason Shepard, an eighth grader who's also a pathological liar. When he's caught lying about a school assignment, he begs for a final chance and gets it, as long as he can get an essay to his teacher by a certain time.

He does the work, but on his way to hand in the paper he runs into Big Time Hollywood Producer Marty Wolf (deliciously played by Paul Giamatti), and forgets his paper in Wolf's limousine.

Needless to say he's in even bigger trouble over his work and his lack of trustworthiness.

To make matters worse for him, a few months later he sees the teaser for an upcoming film called Big Fat Liar and, much to his chagrin, realizes that it's the story he wrote but that was lost in the producer's limo.

He, with his friend Kaylee (Amanda Bynes), sneaks off to Hollywood to find the producer and get him to tell his father the truth about the story, so he can regain his father's trust.

Naturally, things don't work out exactly as planned and he's forced to force the nasty Marty Wolf (who really is a poisonous individual) to do the right thing.

We really expected Big Fat Liar to be a big, dumb and empty kiddie flick, but were pleasantly surprised instead to find a funny and entertaining movie. While relatively low budget (most of it's shot at Universal Studios, which unapologetically plays itself), it's well written and performed, and is a fun hour and a half in the home theater.

The Universal footage is actually pretty fun because you can watch for all kinds of memorabilia in the background, things from the Bates Motel to the “Back to the Future” DeLorean and assorted props and costumes.

The DVD, as mentioned above, is very disappointing. For whatever reason, Universal has chosen to release it only in the inferior Pan&Scan format and while this might be acceptable to people who have yet to embrace the new TV reality, it's totally unacceptable to those who've shelled out for 16x9 aspect ratio TV's.

The picture quality is fine, but unless you have an old fashioned TV you have to stretch and/or zoom it to fill the screen lest you burn in the bars the 4x3 picture leaves to each side of the rectangular screen. Zooming the picture also cuts down on the resolution.

This is a slap in the face to the people who've been investing in the DVD and HDTV formats. If you must release a movie in a Pan&Scan version, it should be released with both versions on the same disc, or at least with both versions on two discs in the same package.

It's bad enough that many new releases are coming out with separate widescreen and P&S versions in separate boxes, which will force consumers moving to 16x9 TV's to buy a second copy of the disc to get the full benefit of the widescreen DVD format; but it's ridiculous to not even offer a widescreen version when the movie was originally shot in a widescreen aspect ratio.

The bastardization is announced in a disclaimer at the beginning of the feature that trumpets that the movie “Has been formatted to fit your TV.” Well not our TV, thank you very much for nothing.

Too bad. The picture looked fine, but of course since we had to stretch it wider the cast looked as if it could collectively lose a few pounds.

The audio, on the other hand, is excellent, with pretty good use of surround but with good fidelity and richness in the highs and the lows. It's offered in both Dolby Digital 5.1 and DTS versions – which is just how it should be, though it also makes the lack of choice for the picture even harder to take.

There are plenty of extras, too, starting with a running commentary by Frankie Muniz and director Shawn Levy. There are also some deleted scenes, “Spyro Video Game Extras” and an interactive “adventure” in Universal Studios' backlot. You also get a “Are You A Big Fat Liar” game (if we were we wouldn't have complained about the Pan&Scan!), a trivia challenge, behind the scenes featurette and more.

Big Fat Liar, from Universal Home Video
88 min. Pan&Scan (1.33:1), not 16x9 TV compatible, Dolby Digital 5.1 and DTS Surround
Starring Frankie Muniz, Paul Giamatti, Amanda Bynes
Produced by Mike Tollin, Brian Robbins
Written by Dan Schneider, Directed by Shawn Levy

Tell us at TechnoFile what YOU think