Doogal is a stupid movie. It was so bad that Pookie did not even care when we turned it off at the end. The plot is incredibly dull and predictable. Everything happens in 15-60 second scenes. There is a ton of side chatter that is meant to entertain the adults. And, that is where part of my biggest problem with the movie comes in.
Most of the movie was geered towards adults. There were references to The Matrix, Lord of the Rings, Pirates of the Caribbean to name a few. All of these movies are at least PG-13. I should not have to worry about my kid asking what the rabbit means when he says “There is no spoon” in a G rated movie. There were also a few scenes where a bunch of skeletons chase the heroes trying to kill them. The skeletons even mention that they are trying to kill them. People trying to murder each other should not occur in G rate movies. We had to skip through several scenes and my wife plans on trying to return the movie.
Just because the characters are animated does not mean that my 3 year olds should be watching it without Parental Guidance because Some Material May Not Be Suitable For Children. Don’t they have a rating for those kinds of movies besides G?
Update: Thanks Todd for reminding us that Curious George is a great movie for young kids. I wrote a review for Curious George when it first came out in the movies. Great kid fun and well deserving of a G rating.
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Go to it BEAGOODMOM. You are right! MOM
I’ve never even heard of Doogal. No loss, I guess!
My kids didn’t care for it either. Ironically, I just had a movie rating discussion with my daughter this past month. I told her one Sunday morning she could watch a movie but only if it was G rated. I came downstairs a little later to see her watching Princess Diaries 2. I asked her how she thought that movie qualified and she shot back, “Because it’s rated G.” I said, “It is not.” She says, “It is too SEE!!” *blush* she was right. I had no idea. I just assumed the days of G rated movies that weren’t cartoons were gone with the Apple Dumpling Gang. My bad.
You’re right about rating not being the whole ball of wax though – far from it. I sat through an old PG movie with my daughter and had to turn it off for the crude sexual humor and implications. We use Netflix and love it. I get a chance to preview a show before/if I decide to buy it.
At least you were watching it with your kids. I think that’s at least half the battle of the entertainment influence demon.
Hugs,
Holly
Holly’s Corner
Of course, there’s the unwritten rating system. It’s called ‘Straight to video’.
Of course that doe not count for known entities like Elmo, Barney, Thomas the Train, Baby Einstein, and Quentin Tarentino.
I will put in a big plug for Curious George. one of the few theater movies that I think got the “G” rating exactly right. One of the few movies I would take my 6 and 5 year old to in the theater (where I can’t fast forward). Even things like Cars had flatulence jokes and inappropriate references for young kids.
Todd, you are absolutely right about Curious George. I wrote a post about that on another one of my blogs when it first came out. I’ll update the post to give a link to it in a second.
Thanks for reminding me about that.