Judging by mainstream movies, no one in Hollywood has ever actually met (much less had) an actual child: Kids in American movies tend to be spooky, precocious mini-adults, prone to wise sayings and highly calculated antics. Granted, it's hard to direct children, much less coach them into something as nuanced as naturalism, especially since few directors have the courage of How To Eat Fried Worms writer-director Bob Dolman, who seemingly just wound his cast up, then stood back and watched. The results are anarchic but charmingly authentic. Granted, that's no selling point for people who find mobs of yelling children inherently obnoxious. But actual kids and tolerant parents should have a blast following Worms' loose-limbed action, in which a bunch of boys spend an idle day running amuck and, well, eating worms.
Taking the title and not much else from Thomas Rockwell's classic children's book, How To Eat Fried Worms morphs the story into a standard-issue "new kid in town gets bullied until he finds a way to fit in" genre exercise. Luke Benward is the new kid; Adam Hicks is the bully who maneuvers Benward into betting he can eat 10 worms in a day. (The loser of the bet has to walk through school with his pants full of worms.) Hicks' many sycophants attempt to make the worms extra-disgusting by frying them in lard, microwaving them, and slathering them in gunk, but everywhere they go, adults chase them off before they can get more than a single worm prepared. And as the group runs around pell-mell in search of new worm-cooking venues, the project rapidly evolves from a deathly serious grade-school status challenge into a big group game.
There's no great art to Fried Worms' simple, family-friendly style and obvious clichés, but there's a refreshing lack of x-treme attitude, slapstick violence, and all the other things that make most kids' movies feel like they were generated by a marketing committee. Dolman replaces those with winning characters, particularly sweet local girl Hallie Kate Eisenberg and Benward's sympathetic dad, who's undergoing an adult version of new-kid hazing. But mostly, Dolman observes as Benward and company have simple kid fun, making messes and going into naughty-word ecstasies over a picture labeled "sphincter." "Boys are so weird," Eisenberg repeatedly says throughout the goofery. But even she says it with amused affection.