Family Filmgoer

10 and older

The Pirates! Band of Misfits (PG). Much of the humor in this animated comedy will, alas, go over kids’ heads. Yet there’s little in the film that is inappropriate for those 10 and older, save a lone line uttered by the Pirate Captain, who reminisces about how he used to enjoy running people through and killing babies. The Pirate Captain and his merry crew are headed to Blood Island so the Captain can enter the Pirate of the Year contest. He encounters a scientist named Charles Darwin, who notes that the Captain’s pet Polly is actually a rare dodo bird. Darwin brings the Captain and his crew to London for a science contest and things get quite out of hand.

Loading...

Comments

• Weigh In
• Corrections?

Personal Post

THE BOTTOM LINE: The dialogue includes very mild sexual innuendo, as with a character named “The Surprisingly Curvaceous Pirate.” A few mild curses such as “hell’s barnacles!” are heard. A subplot about rich people who like to eat the meat of rare, exotic animals could disturb kids.

PG-13

Marvel’s The Avengers. Most teens and lots of tweens will enjoy this witty, raucous ride, which doesn’t push PG-13 boundaries much at all. Joss Whedon’s eardrum-blowing, property-destroying mash-up keeps humor and characterization simmering nicely, amid the 3-D, special effects and mayhem. The villain, Loki, invades the secret Earth-protection agency S.H.I.E.L.D. and grabs a renewable energy Cosmic Cube. He aims to use it to subjugate humankind. Nick Fury, leader of S.H.I.E.L.D., puts out the call to superheroes, asking them to set aside their egos and defeat Loki and the invading army he aims to unleash.

THE BOTTOM LINE: The mayhem rarely gets graphic. Natasha is smacked hard by Russian “interrogators.” Loki warns Natasha that he’ll kill her “slowly, intimately.” The rest of the violence involves arm-bending, neck-cracking, head-banging, body-hurling fights, as well as massive property destruction in car chases and aerial dog fights. Younger audience members may recoil to see Bruce Banner morph into the Incredible Hulk. The exploding arrows shot by Hawkeye aim for eyeballs, but not graphically. There is mild sexual innuendo.

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. Here’s the film that parents and grandparents can enjoy while the kids give their eyes and eardrums a workout at “The Avengers.” That noted, there’s nothing in “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel” that’s inappropriate for high-schoolers, though some of the mildish innuendo about elder-sex could make middle-schoolers cringe. A passel of geezers leave England for India to spend their twilight years in a hotel in Jaipur. The rundown place was heavily photo-shopped by the host, the charming but disorganized Sonny Kapoor. Director John Madden does a lovely job tracing the separate stories, yet giving the film narrative cohesion.

The bottom line: The dialogue includes rare profanity, including one nonsexual use of the F-word. There is considerable sexual innuendo, most of it mild, but some of it bawdy for a PG-13. One comic scene with mild sexual content includes implied nudity. Maggie Smith’s character, without using actual racial slurs, is clearly racist in the beginning and uses nasty stereotypes.