Reviews by Genre
Movie Reviews by Genre
The Nut Job 2: Nutty By Nature
The animals are nuttier than ever in The Nut Job 2. This film continues the story of a group of park animals who must find a new food source when their beloved nut shop burns down. When they find a beautiful new park with green grass and trees they think life is great. However, things get complicated when the mayor wants to destroy the park and build an amusement park for a profit making venture. The rodents think their lives are over, though Surly the squirrel (voice of Will Arnett) steps up and puts together a plan to destroy the amusement park. The Nut Job 2: Nutty by Nature is the sequel to 2014’s The Nut Job.
Rating: 4. 5 out of 5 popcorn buckets
Release Date: November 7, 2017
MPAA Rating: PG
Best Age Group: 6+
Sexual Content: Mild
Violent/Disturbing Content: Moderate
Crude or Profane Language: Mild
Drug and Alcohol Content: Mild
Will Kids Like It? Yes
Talking Points:
- The film highlights the importance of team work and family.
- There’s a lot of bodily function humor.
Sexual Content: Mild
- Two dogs fall in love and eventually have puppies.
Violent/Disturbing Content: Moderate
- The construction site of an amusement park is destroyed resulting in fires and explosions.
- The human characters tend to be the villains: a father and daughter are both sadistic in the way they treat animals. Animals’ lives are threatened by construction workers.
- In a flashback, two animals nearly die in a hurricane.
- There’s a lot of slapstick silly violence. Surly jumps out of moving vehicles, he’s beaten by a mouse, and he’s electrocuted.
Crude or Profane Language: Mild
- We hear name calling such as: “moron,” and “dumb.” We hear “What the …?”
Drug and Alcohol Content: Mild
- A character was shot with a tranquilizing dart and appears drunk.
Will Kids Like It? Yes
Overall The Nut Job 2: Nutty By Nature is a kid friendly movie. Parents need to be aware of the moderate slapstick violence and bodily function humor.
The Dark Tower-Kids Movie Review
Jake Chambers (Tom Taylor), a pre-teen boy, has very bad dreams at night. They’re so vivid and seem so real that when he wakes up he draws images of what he’s seen and puts them on a cork board in his room. He wants to figure out what these nightly terrors mean. His dreams are about a man in black who uses kids to try to destroy the world. There’s a Gunslinger who tries to stop him. Jake eventually realizes that his dreams are real; he meets the Gunslinger, Roland (Idris Elba), and he learns about the Dark Tower that protects the universe from monsters. He also learns that Walter (Matthew McConaughey), also known as the Man in Black, hopes to destroy the tower. The battle between good and evil begins as Jake and Roland try to save the world from the evil Man in Black. The Dark Tower is based on Stephen King’s Dark Tower book series.
Rating: 3 out of 5 popcorn buckets
Release Date: October 31, 2017
MPAA Rating: PG13
Best Age Group: 14+
Sexual Content: None
Violent/Disturbing Content: Excessive
Crude or Profane Language: Mild
Drug and Alcohol Content: Mild
Will Kids Like It? No
Talking Points:
Sexual Content: None
Violent/Disturbing Content: Excessive
- There’s a lot of guns and shooting. A boy learns to shoot a gun.
- Boys fight at school; punching and hitting one another.
- Character’s are shown stabbing with knives and hitting with heavy objects..
- A chunk of glass goes through a character’s hand. We see a lot of blood.
- There are explosions and earthquakes.
- We see drawings of scary and disturbing images.
Crude or Profane Language: Mild
- We hear “sh-t,” and “h–l.”
Drug and Alcohol Content: Mild
- A character takes a handful of painkillers.
Will Kids Like It? No
Overall The Dark Tower is a dark sci/fi film. Parents need to be aware of the excessive violence throughout the film.
The Emoji Movie-Kids Movie Review
A text can show a lot of emotions, especially with the right emoji. Happy, sad, frustrated, confused; emoji’s express the way a person feels. The Emoji Movie is a story about a world inside our smartphones. Each emoji is supposed to have one job or a certain expression. When the Meh symbol is pressed, Gene Meh, a young emoji, messes up and shows more than one expression. Now mayhem ensues in the world of emoji’s, and the adorable symbols try to handle the chaos while hoping they don’t get deleted.
Rating: 4 and 1/2 buckets out of 5 popcorn buckets
Release Date: October 24, 2017
MPAA Rating: PG
Best Age Group: 6+
Sexual Content: Mild
Violent/Disturbing Content: Moderate
Crude or Profane Language: Moderate
Drug and Alcohol Content: Mild
Will Kids Like It? Yes
Talking Points:
Sexual Content: Mild
- There’s flirting between the emoji characters and human characters.
- A character’s phone plays the song “Bubblebutt.”
Violent/Disturbing Content: Moderate
- Robots chase emoji’s and blasts them with lasers.
- One of the robots is very scary and intimidating. At one point it seems as though all the emoji’s will be deleted.
Crude or Profane Language: Mild
- A character starts to say, “Oh “sh–, ” but doesn’t finish the word. We hear name calling, to name a few; “loser,” “freak,” “weirdo,” “stupid,” and “butt.”
Drug and Alcohol Content: Mild
- There’s a beer emoji.
- A character mentions, “Hack Daniels.”
Will Kids Like It? Yes
Overall The Emoji Movie is a fun, colorful and very kid-friendly movie. Adult’s may like it too.
Dunkirk-Kids Movie Review
Dunkirk is a World War II film where Allied forces are surrounded and trapped on Dunkirk beach. A private English citizen named Mr. Dawson (Mark Rylance), his son Peter, and Peter’s friend George, volunteer to cross the channel and rescue as many soldiers as they can transport, hoping to rescue thousands of troops off Dunkirk’s beaches. The trio risk their lives to rescue the soldiers despite the danger in a war torn area. Dunkirk is a powerful story about the horror’s and heroes of this well known battle.
Rating: 3 out of 5 popcorn buckets
Release Date: December 17, 2017
MPAA Rating: PG13
Best Age Group: 13+
Sexual Content: None
Violent/Disturbing Content: Excessive
Crude or Profane Language: Moderate
Drug and Alcohol Content: Mild
Will Kids Like It? Possibly
Talking Points:
This is an educational film that will spark some great parent/child conversations. The battle at Dunkirk was devastating and resulted in many deaths. However, the films highlights the courage and heroism in many characters who risked their lives to help others.
A commander noted in the film that they were hoping to save 30,000 soldiers. When the operation concluded they rescued some 330,000 troops safely off the beaches.
Sexual Content: None
Violent/Disturbing Content: Excessive
- There are numerous casualties from explosions and character’s being shot. We see characters drowning and swept to sea, soldiers burn in an oil fire, a character walks into the ocean, presumably committing suicide. Having said that we don’t see a lot of bloody and gory scenes.
Crude or Profane Language:
- The f-word is said twice. We also hear “sh-t,” “d-mn,” and “h-ll.”
Drug and Alcohol Content: Mild
- We see soldiers drinking beer.
Will Kids Like It? Maybe
- After talking to several teens I found that mature teenagers will most likely find the story educational and interesting.
Overall parents need to aware of the mature subject matter and excessive violence.
War For The Planet Of The Apes-Kids’ Movie Review
Caesar (Andy Serkis), the intelligent leader of the apes, suffers a tremendous loss when his home is attacked by human soldiers. Sad and upset, Caesar moves his tribe to a new location though he briefly leaves the group to find the colonel responsible for the attack. Fortunately, Caesar is accompanied by close friends and while on their odyssey they come across some interesting characters. Caesar eventually finds the Colonel (Woody Harrelson), hoping to seek revenge. War for the Planet of the Apes is the third movie focusing on Caesar… the intelligent leader of the apes.
Rating: 3 and 1/2 buckets out of 5 popcorn buckets
Release Date: October 24, 2017
MPAA Rating: PG13
Best Age Group: 13+
Sexual Content: Mild
Violent/Disturbing Content: Excessive
Crude or Profane Language: Mild
Drug and Alcohol Content: Mild
Will Kids Like It? Maybe
Talking Points:
Sexual Content: None
Violent/Disturbing Content: Excessive
- The film is dark and creepy with a lot of violence. There are battles with guns, arrows, missiles and explosions throughout the film.
- Apes kill humans and battle with one other.
- We see injured characters and their bloody wounds.
- Apes are imprisoned, hung on X-shaped crosses, whipped and treated like slaves.
- A gorilla is suffocated.
Crude or Profane Language: Mild
- We hear “goddamn,” and “h-ll.”
Drug and Alcohol Content: Mild
Will Kids Like It? Maybe
Overall this is a dramatic sci/fi film that will most likely appeal to the Planet of the Apes fans.