Sunday, April 05, 2009

Monsters vs. Aliens

Spent an awesome weekend away with the gals camping in East TX.

When I got home, I had planned to take Jack to see Monsters vs Aliens. Like my BFF, Jana, who also took her kids today, I had reservations about taking Jack to a PG movie at age 5. But, they were really marketing this to a young audience and I had done lots of internet and personal research to see if people thought it was appropriate for Jack's age. Everything I heard said yes. Additionally, it was a movie about Monsters and Aliens, two of Jack's favorite topics.

So, off we went to the 3-D version. I was really excited because I thought that Jack would think the 3-D was incredibly cool. That, he did. I don't know I'll ever forget his excitement when it started and things were just popping out all over the place.

As for the movie, well, it was definitely PG for a reason. Some of the jokes were potty driven and thankfully, Jack did not get them. Some other jokes were definitely aimed at adults and were hilarious. Some of the situations were a bit grown up for Jack, too. For example, at one point, the main character referred to her ex as a "selfish jerk." I groaned.

It was pretty action-packed in 3-D. So, when the giant choppers were trying to kill the main character as she was dangling off the Golden Gate Bridge, Jack had to sit in my lap. In addition, at one point, you thought a character was killed and that was tough for me to explain to Jack.

I will say that although he was pretty scared much of the time, when it was over, he could not stop talking about how much he loved it. We went out to dinner, just the two of us, and he just went on and on about how much he liked it. I asked him his favorite part, he said, "everything."

Bottom line? If you have kids under the age of 6 or so, you might want to see the movie first and decide for yourself if you think your child would like it. It might be just fine for your child. Jack really liked it but in retrospect, I probably would have held off and maybe rented it.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thank you for the review - it is so hard to try to decide what they should see/not see! I like the movies that kids enjoy but do not turn the parents' brain to mush in the process of trying to watch it!
Although at 11, my son is probably aware of the adult humor now!

L in Alaska

Greta said...

Kristi, thanks for the review. I already had an idea, but you've confirmed it that Sarah will probably like this movie, but Isabel will not. She's too young and I think the 3D will scare the crap out of her.

Angel said...

What a nice "date" for you and Jack. I'm sure he just loved having you all to himself for a few hours.

Nicole said...

Now I feel bad that a) I didn't realize it was a PG movie (bad mom, bad mom!) and b) Will took BOTH the kids to see it! They went to Studio Movie Grill and therefore didn't see it in 3-D, so it was probably a little less intense. While not scared, Will did say that Luke didn't pay as much attention to it as Liam did. Hopefully no permanent damage done! It seems like so many of the animated films are PG these days -- it's confusing to stupid people like me!

Goodnight, Mom said...

Nicole, I'm sure that the kids were fine. Jack is just a bit scared of things. Like, for example, Nemo scares him to death when the sharks come along. I always have to fast forward. Each child handles things differently (as you know!) and I'm sure that they loved it! Even though Jack was scared, he STILL talks about it and how much he enjoyed it.

-K