Harry Potter and the Order of Phoenix Review
As Harry’s fifth year at Hogwarts begins in The Order of the Phoenix, he is shunned by many of his schoolmates. No one believes him regarding Voldemort’s return. One of the great subplots in this movie is that the Minister of Magic thinks that Dumbledore is out for the minister’s job so he sends Dolores Umbridge to the school as a professor. She’s mean and awful but she covers it up with a happy smile and a pink wardrobe and causes all sorts of trouble for Harry and his friends.
Rating: Five out of five buckets.
Release Date: December 11, 2009
MPAA Rating: PG13
Best Age Group: 10+
Sexual Content: Mild
Violent Content: Moderate
Crude or Profane Language: Mild
Drugs and Alcohol Content: MIld
Talking Points:
Like the 4th movie, this movie is also rated PG13. In this movie Harry prepares for his darkest year ever dealing with the evil wizard, Lord Voldermort. Due to violence and a scary plot, it may frighten some kids. Depending on the child, this movie is best suited for kids ages 10 and up.
Not being a Harry Potter fan until a few weeks ago, I have thoroughly enjoyed the Harry Potter series so far, and can’t wait to read the books. If your kids like fantasy, action movies, with mild to moderate violence, it’s a fun family escape into a different world. I give the Harry Potter movies 1 – 5, five buckets!
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire Review
In the Goblet of Fire, Harry is entering his 4th year at Hogwarts. Hoping for a quiet year of school, Harry reunites with his friends at Hogwarts. When he arrives at school Dumbledore announces that Hogwarts will host the Triwizard Tournament, one of the most exciting and dangerous of the magical competitions. Harry Potter along with Cedric Diggory(Robert Pattinson) are selected from Hogwarts. Now Harry must deal with not only schoolwork, but the difficult tournament and also a little teen romance.
Rating: Five out of five buckets
Release Date: October 19, 2010
MPAA Rating: PG13
Best Age Group: 10+
Sexual Content: Mild
Violent Content: Excessive
Crude or Profane Language: Mild
Drugs and Alcohol Content: Mild
Talking Points:
This movie is rated PG 13. The film is more violent, and has a scarier plot than the others. We see the evil Lord Voldemort fully return in this movie and kill a student which may scare kids. This film is appropriate for kids ages 10 and up, with parental guidance due to the violent images.
Happy Feet 2 Review
Have you ever seen your child being bullied? Well Mumble, The Master of Tap, saw his son Erik being bullied, because he couldn’t dance. Feeling depressed and lonely, Erik ran away, and came across The Mighty Sven, a penguin who could fly. Erik’s father, Mumble, may have been a good dancer, but he could not fly, and he certainly could not compete with Erik’s new role model, Sven. However, when a massive iceberg broke and slammed into the emperor penguins’ bay; the penguins were trapped. So then Mumble, Erik and friends had to rescue the victims. Happy Feet Two is an entertaining fun movie for kids of all ages.
Rating: 3 out of 5 buckets
Release Date: March 13, 2012
MPAA Rating: PG
Best Age Group: Any age
Sexual Content: Mild
Violent Content: Mild
Crude or Profane Language: Mild
Drugs and Alcohol Content: None
See a clip of my review here, plus the Breaking Dawn review!
Talking Points:
At some point in our lives we may have experienced what it’s like not to fit in. Mumble desperately wanted to let Erik know that he will eventually fit in, and make his contribution to the world. This could spark a good parent-child conversation.
The movie is filled with great messages for youngsters to hear. In one scene Erik sang a song about how his father had inspired him to keep striving to make a difference, even if things seemed impossible. Another great parent/child conversation.
The music was fun and entertaining in the film. Kids in the theater were dancing in their seats; they had happy feet too!
I never saw the first Happy Feet movie, and I really enjoyed this movie, though it was about a half an hour too long. I noticed the kids in the theater were getting antsy too.
Sexual Content: Mild
- Two male characters had affection for each other. This could spark a conversation with your kids.
- One character said, “I’d never have an egg with you.”
Violent Content: Mild
- Penguins formed an ice ramp to try and fly out of the hole they were trapped in; it didn’t work, but they kept trying, though they fell to the ground each time.
Crude or Profane Language: Mild
- They said, “fluff” instead of the f-word…”fluff off.”
Drug and Alcohol Content: None
Overall Happy Feet Two is an entertaining, heartwarming film with a message of the importance of love, acceptance, and determination. Appropriate for any age!
Gulliver’s Travels Review
Gulliver’s Travels is an adaptation of Jonathan Swift’s novel Gulliver’s Travels. This is the story about Gulliver (Jack Black), who works in the mailroom at a New York newspaper, though he desperately wants to be a travel writer for the newspaper. He finally gets his big break when he’s sent out on an assignment to the Bermuda Triangle. Hit by an unexpected storm, Gulliver is shipwrecked on the shore of a tiny island called Lilliput, and he is surrounded by the tiny inhabitants of this 18th century style kingdom. He and his new friends have many adventures as Gulliver risks his life to save Lilliput from their enemies.
Rating: Three out of five buckets
Release Date: April 19, 2011
MPAA Rating: PG
Best Age Group: 5+
Sexual Content: Mild
Violent Content: Moderate
Crude or Profane Language: Mild
Drugs and Alcohol Content: Mild
Talking Points:
In this kid friendly movie, children will be entertained by Jack Black’s character as a big, harry beast, (that’s how the Lilliputian’s described him). He is a likable character, who you feel sorry for, and want to succeed.
Even though Gulliver was not initially liked by the Lilliputians, he ended up being an inspiration to them. He introduced them to music video games, and he taught his best friend Horatio some modern day courting techniques, which was quite humorous.
Sexual Content: Mild
This was a PG movie, which I think was rated correctly. There were some passionate kisses, but nothing inappropriate. There was one scene where the princess asks her fiance why he loves her, and points to her chest. Something parents may want to know.
Violent Content: Moderate
- There were a few battles, in one scene Gulliver was hit by cannonballs on his stomach, after the battle his chest was covered with red welts, it was disgusting.
- In another scene, Gulliver was fighting with a general, who built a giant robot to defeat Gulliver. Gulliver took a lot of abuse from this robot.
Profanity: Mild
- There was some profanity, nothing too bad.
When the movie was finished I interviewed a 6 year old boy and his dad. The boy liked the movie, and the dad said he thought it was okay, but a good kid movie. That’s how I felt, the movie was just okay. However, kids seemed to enjoy it, there was nothing too inappropriate, a movie boys and girls may like. Appropriate for kids ages five and up.
Grown Ups Review
This is the story about five friends in their early forty’s who reunite at the funeral of their childhood basketball coach. After the funeral they spend the Fourth of July weekend together, with their families, at the lake house where they had once celebrated a championship basketball season. Even though these men are “grown ups” now, they don’t always act like it.
Rating: Three out of five buckets
Release Date: November 9, 2010
MPAA Rating: PG13
Best Age Group: 10+
Sexual Content: Moderate
Violent Content: Mild
Crude or Profane Language: Moderate
Drugs and Alcohol Content: Mild
Talking Points:
Great all star cast with Adam Sandler, Kevin James, Chris Rock, Rob Schneider, and David Spade. This group together lends itself to a comedy.
Adam Sandler plays a successful Hollywood agent. Once he and his family are at the Lake House, Lenny (Adam Sandler) realizes how spoiled his children are. Initially his kids only drank bottled water, and he couldn’t get them away from their cell phones and video games. It was refreshing to see the gradual change of his kids, they learned to appreciate nature; and that you don’t need electronics to have fun. This is a good lesson for kids.
Some adults in their forty’s will relate to these five men as they face middle age pressures, such as their career issues, marriage, parenting, weight gain and of course hair loss.
This is a PG13 rating, which I thought was appropriately rated.
Sexual Content:
- Some things parents may want to know: there were many suggestive sexual comments, some male rear nudity.
- Even though I liked “The Wedding Crashers,” and “The Hangover.” I didn’t particularly like this type of silly, potty humor, however the audience did. Some jokes were:
- One of the wives breast-fed her four year-old son, that was a continuous joke throughout the whole movie. That joke has been in many movies lately and in my opinion has gotten old.
- There were many sexual comments. The men and young boys made many suggestive comments about women.
Violent Content: Mild
- Silly slapstick violence
Profane or crude language: Moderate
Drug and Alcohol Content: Mild
My fourteen year-old daughter didn’t like it at all, she thought it was stupid and boring. My friend’s twelve year-old daughter said it was “dumb humor.” But my ten and twelve year old boys absolutely loved it, so did other boys in the theater. Whenever I looked over at my boys they had big smiles on their faces, while my daughter ‘s comments were,“This is not funny at all,” her comments made me laugh more than the movie.
It seemed that the audience thought this was a funny movie, they were laughing the whole time. Though when I interviewed people after the movie I got mixed reviews, but I found that most boys ages 10 and up loved it! When I was leaving the theater a man yelled out, “Give it five buckets.” So to compromise, I’m going to give it 3 out of 5 buckets. I do think boys 10 and up will find it to be fun and entertaining.