Lucybespro It is a performances centric movie

Matialth Good concept, poorly executed.

Guillelmina The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Dana An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

ian_snively This film exploits the "gross-out" and "kids rule" to an extreme. There is nothing wrong with this, since shows on Nickelodeon had similar themes and were decent, but this film decides to force it down the audience's throats, with one-dimensional characters all around the board; who have little to no redeeming quality in their personality.*SPOILER* The ending provides one of the worst morals you can give to a kid, seeing how the main character in the movie was a decent soul. By the end of the film, he wonders if he should stop this "bet" with these bullies. However, he makes the choice of finishing the bet, despite the trouble that he got into. He befriends the bullies, and they stuff a bunch of worms down the principal's pants (...nice). I also felt really sorry for the "witch" lady in the film. She was treated as this "evil" woman, and was pressured with rumors all around town. We end up knowing anything about her character, as she too is portrayed as the "crazy old hag" stereotype in the film (Remember kids. All old woman who live in a cabin by themselves with no company are crazy and should be mocked Moments like these are downright disgraceful.The film would have been clever if, in the beginning, the characters seem like tropes, but end up being someone completely different (but only seem one-dimensional due to the obvious social pressure you see in the film). But the movie does otherwise, and tries to brainwash kids into a little world of stereotypes and insults just to make a quick buck.I remember seeing this movie when I was a kid. This was the movie that woke me up; realizing that not every movie is going to be good. Even as a child, I thought that the gross "humor" and mean spirit atmosphere went to far. There was nothing to enjoy and no characters to like. It was painful all the way through.Save your money. This movie is not even worth a rental. Trust me, there are much better family-friendly films out there that your kids can enjoy.

Ali Catterall Among the American Library Association's '100 Most Frequently Challenged (ie challenging) Books Of 1990 - 2001', Thomas Rockwell's classic children's novel 'How To Eat Fried Worms' sits at number 96.Quite why it was deemed fitting for the ALA's sinbin, alongside such horrors as 'Mommy Laid An Egg', 'My Brother Sam Is Dead' and the ever-popular 'The Boy Who Lost His Face', is mystifying. As a classmate observes in Bob (The Banger Sisters) Dolman's very loose screen adaptation, "normal people don't eat worms." Well, not normally, but if there's a matter of personal honour at stake, boys of all ages will do all kinds of impossible things.In Rockwell's original novel, our young protagonist Billy is dared by his pals to scoff 15 fried worms in as many consecutive days. Should he succeed, he'll win a mini bike. If he loses, he has to cough up 50 greenbacks, along with those masticated worm segments.Upping the ante, the screen version of How To Eat Fried Worms sees 11-year-old Billy (Benward) obliged by fifth-grade despot Joe (Hicks) to eat 10 of the squirming critters in one day - else take a shuffle of shame down the school corridor with his pants stuffed with live nightcrawlers. For Billy, a dweeb-magnet in a new school, the task is further complicated by the fact he's already got a weak stomach. What follows may cause those of a squeamish disposition to mislay the contents of their own.If you've seen one worm devourment, you've seen them all, so to hold the interest, Billy's slithery snacks are given the Nigella makeover, with dishes called things like 'The Barfmallow', 'The Radioactive' (steamed in a microwave) and 'The Fireball' (drowned in chilli sauce); a flair for home economics previously unheard of in rough-and-tumble fifth-grade boys.Will Billy win the bet? Well, there's so little suspense involved - after the first wriggler's taken the train to tummytown, Billy has little trouble polishing off the rest - that it's pretty hard to care. Plus, it's difficult to believe that by forcing down the unsavoury fare, poor Billy will win a new-found respect and cease to be called 'Wormboy'. If anything, the reverse would be the case. One imagines him starting his first day at the stock exchange, and a fellow trader saying, "Hey... aren't you the guy who ate the worms?" Naturally, this is all secondary to the real message, driven home with the subtlety of a chainsaw; that bullies are made, not born, and if we only took time out to understand their problems we could unite both sides of the Gaza Strip. We're in Stand By Me territory, with that movie's blend of gross-out humour and heartfelt adolescent bonding, and those elements don't always prove such a digestible mix here.That said, Dolman's a good director of kids, able, as Herr Lipp of 'The League Of Gentlemen' would undoubtedly say, to "put himself inside an 11-year-old boy". Hicks, as the bullying and bullied Joe, is standout. The frankly horrifying rumour that one punch from Joe's 'death ring' will lead to a belated death by perforated ulcer in the eighth grade is a fine example of adolescent psychosis. While exchanges like "His mind told his vomit to stay inside his stomach." "Impossible!" "Yeah, puke has a mind of its own," would fit quite comfortably in a 'grown-up' comedy.The best line, though, is the one about an old woods-dwelling woman who the kids are afraid of: "Some people call her the two-headed witch. Know why? Coz she had two heads once. But one fell off."

Ron Mexico Watching the commercials for this movie, I was fairly convinced that I was going to loathe it. For one thing, it was one of those "loosely based on the novel" movies, which usually means that the book author saw the script, hated it, and refused to be associated with the film. Worse, the trailer showed only the most mundane slapstick imaginable (ex: kid gets squirted in the face with a garden hose...and falls over). So when my little brother got it into his mind that this was the "must see" film of the season (of course, he thought the same thing about "Cars", "Over the Hedge", "The Ant Bully", "Monster House", etc, etc), I was admittedly less than thrilled.But once at the theater, the film won me over for a variety of reasons. First and foremost, the writers capture 'kid dialogue' better than just about any other children's film I've ever seen. A prime example of this comes directly after the boys' principal accidentally eats a worm stuck in an egg omelet. The boys do a lame, over-exaggerated impression of the principal lecturing them, which makes it realistic since all little kids think (mistakenly) that they do great mocking expressions of their adult tormentors. Then one of the boys asks, "Why did he say, 'alley oop'?" Another boy responds, "Maybe he's crazy!" and the entire group laughs uproariously. Not an overly witty rejoinder, but exactly the kind of thing a young kid would come up with on the spot and exactly the type of remark other kids his age would find hilarious. As if to confirm it, my kid brother laughed right on cue when they were spoken on-screen; I could practically hear his voice spouting the same exact lines if he was placed in a similar situation.Another reason the movie works is that the writers manage to work in issues like bullying, sibling relationships, the new kid in school, and peer pressure/conformity without making any of them seem as though they were subplots for some after school special. For example, the bully (Joe) isn't stereotypical; he's definitely bad but not pure evil, and just enough of his home-life is revealed that the audience feels sympathy for him and understands his bullying origins. There's also no "cue the dramatic music" moment where Billy ('Worm Boy') realizes what a complete tool he's being to his younger brother Woody, and yet, by the end of the movie, some type of minor transformation has been made. There's some realism here in the way the characters resolve situations and in the way they relate to each other, and very little of it comes across as corny.The only drawback to the movie comes in the form of an absolutely laughable dance scene that even the creators of the infamous McDonald's dance party in "Mac and Me" would scoff at. Why oh why was it put into the movie?? Did Austin Rogers (Adam) pull a Macaulay Culkin and refuse to take the role unless he was given a vehicle to showcase his oh so impressive dancing skills? The entire sequence definitely did not need to be there and had slightly less comedic value than any given show on "The History Channel".Overall, though, this movie was excellent, and the length (about an hour and twenty minutes) was just about perfect. One of the best, most realistic live action kid films you'll ever see if you're ever around children or just remember what being a kid was actually like.

mcgrawfan52277 Saw this today with my 8 year old. I thought it was cute. I agree with the other poster that it wasn't anything like the book that I can remember, but we still enjoyed it. All of the kids are pretty good and all in all pretty entertaining. Billy is the new kid who accepts a dare by the school bully to eat 10 worms in a day. If he loses he has to walk down the hall at school with worms in his pants. The beginning of the movie is set up to show that Billy has a VERY weak stomach and pukes at almost anything. Hilarity ensues with a bunch of different way to cook the worms. Good message about standing up to bullies and of course, a sappy happy ending.