With school holidays still upon us I thought it would be good to review one of the slew of kids films out at the moment. After looking at the films on offer I began to think this wasn't the greatest idea. I don't think anyone wants to read me slamming a film that I'm not even the target demographic for.
With that in mind I grabbed up my two boys, aged 5 and 7, and brought them along to a session of Turbo. Who better to review a kids movie than kids themselves? At the end of the day, it doesn't matter if us older folk like it or not. All that matters is little Timmy enjoys himself.
Going to the movies during school holidays is a very different experience. There were kids everywhere. Everywhere. Pure pandemonium. I'll give credit to the staff at Event Innaloo, while it was complete chaos, it was very much under control. I hadn't told my two boys where we were going on the way to there, so needless to say they were super excited when we got there. They were even more excited that the film I chose was Turbo. They'd been wanting to see this one for some time. We loaded up at the candy bar with some juice and the biggest popcorn we could find and headed in.
The movie ran for an hour and a half and I barely heard a peep out of them. Considering their average attention span at home this alone was a big thumbs up for the movie. Heck, they only ate the popcorn when I literally shoved it in front of them. Movie popcorn is like pure crack so that's some deeply enthralled kids!
So what did the wee ones think? They really liked it. Of course getting a detailed review from a 5 and 7 year old isn't going to happen. They loved it and would see it again. There was plenty of laughs out of them throughout. I heard the word "awesome" bandied about a fair few times and they excitedly talked about their favourite parts on the way home. Then once they were home they were running around arguing over who could pretend to be Turbo in their imaginary snail race.
On my end I must say it wasn't too bad. Not a classic by any means but definitely on the higher side of watchable. There was far less pop culture jokes than the average Dreamworks film which should help it hold up in the coming years. I never found it to be insulting my or my kids' intelligence which can be quite rare in a non-Pixar animated film. I legitimately laughed a few times myself which is always a plus. While the plot was a little predictable I wasn't bored and counting the minutes thankfully. The voice cast was star studded with Ryan Reynolds, Paul Giamatti, Samuel L Jackson, Michelle Rodriguez and Bill Hader among others.
It was 100% appropriate for their age group with nothing too adult or sinister, nor did any jokes really go over their heads. There was some good life lessons at it's core. While the "be yourself" lesson comes up all the time in kid's films the undertones of getting past the limitations others put on you and the dangers of hero worship were rather refreshing.
So, the kids enjoyed it, they learnt some lessons, it was appropriate for them and I didn't mind watching it myself. All in all that's a great win for a children's movie on all points.
Four thumbs up from my little monkeys!
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