Spencer Breslin

What if you really had the chance to change all of that? What if you could talk to yourself when you were only eight years old and explain how to take a stand for yourself, give the younger you understanding of why dad is so angry at the world, and give yourself hope for retaining individuality in a sea of conformity. In the new Disney film The Kid Russ Duritz gets that once in a lifetime chance.

Continue reading: The Kid (2000) Review

Raising Helen is all about Hudson, who stars in the title role, when it should focus on other topics -- the ties of family, coping with tragedy, and starting your life from scratch. The movie harps on how Helen's glamorous life is turned upside down when she is bequeathed her sister's three kids. The story should be on how hard it is for the kids, rather than Helen's bemoaning how fat her ass has gotten.

Continue reading: Raising Helen Review

Disney sure lays it on thick in "The Kid," a feel-good family flick starring Bruce Willis as a snide, fundamentally unhappy L.A. "image consultant" who meets himself as an 8-year-old boy and learns to embrace his inner child.

The incidental music sounds like the soundtrack from "E.T." crossed with a "Teletubbies" song. Willis -- more determined than ever to avoid being pigeon-holed -- spends a good third of the movie looking wistful or misty. The Kid himself (roly-poly, and yes, adorable newcomer Spencer Breslin) isn't a terribly good actor, but boy has he mastered the art of the wide-eyed double-take. It's enough to send a cynical, grown-up movie critic into sugar shock.

But while I have no trouble pointing out everywhere this rather slight movies is flawed -- and its flaws are significant -- I can also admit when I've had a good time at the movies. And "The Kid" made me smile like, well, a kid.

Continue reading: The Kid Review

At least one of the seven credited writers of the sequel-for-sequel's-sake holiday kiddie flick "The Santa Clause 2" clearly felt obliged to try to remedy the picture's contemptibly contrived premise by writing some really funny dialogue. And at least for-hire director Michael Lembeck (a sitcom vet making his screen debut) managed to infuse the movie with a fun, touching, sweet spirit.

But these acts are akin to Christmas miracles, coming as they do under the burden of a plot -- scratch that, a gimmick -- that revolves around finding even more fine print on the calling card of a dead St. Nick, which turned divorced suburban dad Scott Calvin (Tim Allen) into Santa Claus in the original family comedy from 1994.

It seems the elves waited eight years to inform their new Santa that he has until this Christmas to find a Mrs. Claus -- or else. "The de-Santafication process has already begun," frets head elf Bernard (David Krumholtz) as he shoos Scott off to find a wife. Meanwhile cherubic techie-elf Curtis (played by Spencer Breslin, one of those child actors who runs all his lines together without taking a breath or showing a hint of inflection) clones a big, rubbery toy Santa automaton (played by Allen in heavy prosthetic makeup) to stand in for Scott (unconvincingly) so the other elves won't learn of his predicament and panic at his absence.

Continue reading: The Santa Clause 2 Review