Mystery
Mystery movie reviews
Miss Peregrines Home for Peculiar Children-Kids’ Movie Review
Most teenage boys don’t believe in monsters, however Jake Portman does, and rightfully so. Jake’s grandfather would often tell him scary ghost stories, which seemed so real to Jake. Jake’s parents thought he was crazy and even made him see a psychiatrist. Though before Jake’s grandfather died he insisted that Jake go to a mysterious island off the coast of Wales and visit the grandfather’s childhood home. So Jake’s father takes him there. On the island Jake discovers Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children and learns about the residents’ unique powers. There he finds adventure and danger with his new and peculiar friends. Based on the novel Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children.
Rating: 2 and 1/2 out of 5 popcorn buckets
Release Date: December 13, 2016
MPAA Rating: PG13
Best Age Group: 15+
Sexual Content: Mild
Violent/Disturbing Content: Excessive
Crude or Profane Language: Mild
Drug and Alcohol Content: Moderate
Will Teens Like It? No
Talking Points:
Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children is not the typical young adult fantasy movie. It’s a very disturbing and creepy film with horror like images.
Sexual Content: Mild
- We see a couple kiss and flirt with one another.
Violent/Disturbing Content: Excessive
- There are scary monsters with sharp teeth and tentacles to grab and entangle those who get close to it.
- The monsters are enamored with their victims’ eyeballs. We see dead characters with their eyeballs removed revealing dark sockets.
- We see several characters dine on a plateful of eyeballs.
- A character has the power to bring the dead back to life. He does so and then makes them fight to their death(again). This is a very disturbing scene.
- We see an intense battle in an amusement park between the children and the monsters.
Crude or Profane Language: Mild
- We hear “g–d–n,” “h–l,” and “d–ned.”
Drug and Alcohol Content: Moderate
- Miss Peregrine smokes a pipe throughout the film.
- We see characters’ drinking alcohol at a bar.
Will Most Teens Like It? No
Overall this is a very strange and disturbing film.
Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials-Kids’ movie review
In this second movie of The Maze Runner trilogy Thomas and his fellow teenage Gladers are finally rescued from the maze trials. However, now they have a whole new set of challenges. The teenagers get involved with a powerful organization called WCKD, and the teens end up in the Scorch- a desolate wasteland filled with dangerous obstacles and virus infected zombies. Now Thomas and company are on a mission to escape the Scorch and find the group who can help them fight against WCKD. Based on a young adult novel, Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials is an action packed sci-fi movie.
Rating: 3 out of 5 buckets
Release Date: December 15, 2015
MPAA Rating: PG13
Best Age Group: 13+
Sexual Content: Mild
Violent/Disturbing Content: Excessive
Crude or Profane Language: Moderate
Drug and Alcohol Content: Mild
Will Teens Like It? Yes
Talking Points:
- Thomas (Dylan O’Brien) is a great leading character. He’s a good friend and a great role model. The teens look up to him and appreciate his leadership skills.
- The film is dark as it is set in a dystopian society. See violent content below.
Sexual Content: Mild
- There’s a nightclub scene where woman are dancing seductively. Music is playing while we see two of the teens under the influence of an unknown liquid; which they were forced to drink.
- We see a couple passionately kiss.
Violent/Disturbing Content: Excessive
- The Cranks, deformed zombie-like creatures, kill and destroy humans.
- When victims are infected with a rampant disease called Flare, we see their bloody wounds and their blackened skin covered with the disease.
- There are several fights and battles throughout the film. Thomas and the other teens fight the zombie-like creatures, and the zombies fight one another. Teens are beaten, shot, and killed.
- We see a man tied up and severely beaten.
- Unconscious teens are shown hanging upside down in a laboratory with tubes pumping fluid out of their bodies.
Crude or Profane Language: Moderate
- We hear “sh-t,” “a–,” “b–ch,” “d–n,” “h—,” and “b–tard” throughout the film.
Drug and Alcohol Content: Mild
- Teens are forced to drink a liquid that leaves them physically and mentally impaired.
- Drugs are administered to people to stop the progression of the rampant disease.
Will Teens Like It? Yes
- I interviewed several pre-teens who really liked the movie. They had read the book and loved the book to movie transition.
Overall this is a very dark and violent film. Parents need to be aware of the excess violence throughout the film.
The Boy Next Door-Teen Movie Review
Handsome, muscular, and handy, that’s Noah Sandborn (Ryan Guzman),…the boy next door. Noah, a high school senior, moves next door to Claire Peterson (Jennifer Lopez), a high school teacher who recently separated from her husband. Claire is thrilled to have Noah as a neighbor. Noah befriends her teenage son, fixes things around the house and seems like a nice boy to have around. However things dramatically change the night Noah romantically falls for Claire. It’s a night that Claire desperately wants to forget, and a night that Noah won’t forget. Noah becomes an obsessed psychopath… he becomes the boy you don’t want living next door.
Rating: 2 out of 5 popcorn buckets
Release Date: April 28, 2015
MPAA Rating: R
Best Age Group: 17+
Sexual Content: Excessive
Violent/Disturbing Content: Excessive
Crude or Profane Language: Excessive
Drug and Alcohol Content: Mild
Will Teens Like It? Yes
Talking Points:
Pre-teens may want to see this film since it’s about high school students and stars American Idol judge, Jennifer Lopez. Having said that the film is very inappropriate and not recommended for kids…see details below.
The story is somewhat predictable and a little corny, however it’s an exciting thriller.
Sexual Content: Excessive
- We see a very intense and erotic sexual encounter.
- In another sexual scene we see two high school students naked (we see the girl from the front side and waist up, the boy from the side). She’s performing oral sex on him.
- We see a male character naked, from the backside.
Violent/Disturbing Content: Excessive
- Noah becomes creepy and obsessed with Claire. We see him attack her in the boy’s bathroom, shoving her against the wall.
- A woman is murdered, we see her covered in blood.
- An EpiPen is stabbed in a boys eye.
- Characters are hit, kicked, beaten, tied up and covered in blood.
- We see a character shot in the shoulder.
Crude or Profane Language: Excessive
- The f-word is said numerous times. We also hear “a–,” “h–,” “p—y,” and “d–n.”
Drug and Alcohol Content: Mild
- Claire is shown drinking wine.
Will Teens Like It? Yes
Overall this is a suspenseful thriller, though very sexual and not appropriate for kids!
Taken 3-Teen Movie Review
Liam Neeson is back as ex-covert operative Bryan Mills. Things are going well for this humble and quiet man. He and his ex-wife have reconciled their differences and finally get along. He’s very close with his college age daughter, Kim (Maggie Grace), and happily involved in her life. However Bryan’s calm life quickly changes when he finds his ex-wife with her throat slit, dead in his bed. Bryan quickly realizes that he is framed for her murder and decides to run. He’s determined to find the real criminal, and save his daughter from the villain’s evil threats.
Rating: 3 out of 5 popcorn buckets
Release Date: April 21, 2015
MPAA Rating: PG13
Best Age Group: 14+
Sexual Content: Mild
Violent/Disturbing Content: Excessive
Crude or Profane Language: Moderate
Drug and Alcohol Content: Moderate
Will Kids Like It? Yes
Talking Points:
There are no valuable lessons or inspirational moments, however the film is very exciting. Liam Neeson is once again great as Bryan Mills. Having said that, Taken 3 is extremely violent and sometimes hard to watch…see details below.
Sexual Content: Mild
- We see a male character in a hot tub with two women in bikinis.
- A woman tells her ex-husband that she fantasizes about being with him again.
Violent/Disturbing Content: Excessive
- The villain, a vicious Russian crime lord, is very evil. He punches, kicks and kills people throughout the film.
- There are several intense shooting scenes.
- There are car chases and explosions with a lot of casualties.
Crude or Profane Language: Moderate
- The f-word was said once. We also hear “sh-t,” “a–,” and “d–n.”
Drug and Alcohol Content: Moderate
- We see characters drinking and smoking in several scenes throughout the film.
- A character says, “Let’s go get drunk.”
Will Kids Like It? Yes
- I interviewed a 12 year-old boy and girl who both really liked the film. They liked the action and said they were not scared.
Overall this is a very intense, action packed film. Parents need to be aware of the excessive violent content.
Gone Girl- Teen Movie Review
Do you really know someone? Are they happily married or are they pretending to be someone they’re not? Gone Girl is the story about Nick (Ben Affleck) and Amy (Rosamund Pike), a married couple approaching their fifth wedding anniversary. Initially their marriage is wonderful, Nick fell in love with “cool Amy” and Amy fell in love with a hard working loving husband. However things change when Nick loses his job and stressful times arise. So on the day of their fifth anniversary, Amy disappears. Did Nick kill her? Was she kidnapped? Where is Amy? No one knows as the disappearance of Amy becomes a nation wide media hype. Based on the New York Times Best Seller by Gillian Flynn, Gone Girl is a suspenseful drama, one that would be disturbing for kids.
Rating: 1 out of 5 buckets
Release Date: January 13, 2015
MPAA Rating: R
Best Age Group: 17+
Sexual Content: Excessive
Violent Content: Excessive
Crude or Profane Language: Excessive
Drugs and Alcohol: Mild
Will it Appeal to kids? No
Talking Points:
People of all ages have been very excited for the release of Gone Girl due to the popularity of the book. Reading it is one thing, however there are several graphic violent and sexual scenes (see details below) which are very intense and disturbing and would most likely upset kids; pre-teens and younger.
Sexual Content: Excessive
- There are several graphic sexual scenes showing oral sex, explicit sexual encounters, publicly and privately, breast nudity and full-frontal male nudity.
- There are sexual references regarding oral sex, male/female body parts, incest and masturbation.
Violent Content: Excessive
- We see a couple in a sexual encounter, the woman slits the mans throat, killing him. We see massive amounts of blood pouring from his neck.
- We see a character use a wine bottle (under her nightgown) to fake an injury, she stains her underwear with red wine.
- Amy hits herself in the face with a hammer, bites a lover’s lip drawing blood, and injects a needle in herself and proceeds to spill her blood on the floor.
- Amy and Nick get into an argument, he slams her head against a wall. In another scene we see Nick throwing Amy to the floor.
Crude or Profane Language: Excessive
- The f-word, “sh-t,” “a–,” “b–ch,” “p—,” “h—,” “p—y,” and “c—” are used throughout the film.
Drugs and Alcohol: Mild
- Character’s are shown drinking beer and wine.
- We see characters smoking cigarettes.
Will it Appeal to kids? No
Overall Gone Girl is a disturbing, violent and sexual film, one I do not recommend for kids.