“Avoid the cheese touch,” little Chirag Gupta warns Greg and Rowley in DIARY OF A WIMPY KID opening Friday. The “cheese touch” relates to a school yard urban legend—a rotting piece of cheese beckons students to touch it, but if they do, they’ll be outcasts. Victims of the “cheese touch” litter the playground landscape in the tall tale.
Movies focusing on the tween and pre-tween market are a tough sell. These days, most tweens have already matured past material that would be appealing to the pre-tween and parents of pre-tweens are often hesitant to take risks on films that push the PG envelope. We’ve all been bitten in the recent past. Some seemingly kid-friendly PG-13 rated offerings abuse that rating. Last summer’s offensive sequel TRANSFORMERS: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN had me angry that I took my fiancée’s 8 year old. Had I just had access to the film prior to release date, or had I listened to those critics that managed to see the film in advance, perhaps, I would have been prepared for the inappropriate sexual matter within the film. But like most parents, I reasoned that if they’re selling the toys at McDonalds in the standard Happy Meal, it couldn’t be that bad. Boy was I wrong! And sadly, the TRANSFORMERS sequel would have been better had the offensive material been left out. I thought it was a poor decision from a creative stand-point to go that direction.
Compare TRANFORMERS with AVATAR. Both films had the same rating, but few would argue that AVATAR abused that rating. The violence, some language, and smoking were the main reasons for AVATAR’s PG-13. And the violence was really bloodless for the most part. The smoking, a character choice for Dr. Grace Augustine (Sigourney Weaver), I found to be interesting. The language did seem out of place in this futuristic yarn—hopefully, by the time we’re able to travel several light years from earth, our base-line expletives will evolve.
But in the wake of ALICE IN WONDERLAND, parents get another PG offering with DIARY OF A WIMPY KID. I’ll post my review on Friday, but where ALICE captured girl power (and flaunted it), DIARY, based on the best-selling books by Jeff Kinney, goes the other way, giving young boys their own event film. And probably as the perfect counter-programming, adults get REPO MEN, a film that proudly carries the R rating.
Hollywood has already chosen to cool on the violent torture horror genre that gave filmmaker Eli Roth his great rise and made the SAW films one of horror’s most successful franchises. And the recent lack luster performance of GREEN ZONE has now slowed production of any more War pictures (particularly ones involving the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts). This may give parents of younger children a chance to rejoice. More room may be made for films that can safely be touted as for the whole family. Pixar has consistently made this work. And with the final SHREK film looming for a May release, one hopes that animation competitor, Dreamworks, will clean up that series with a wholesome film that does the original justice.
Later this year, the third NARNIA film hits theaters. Slated for a December release, THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: THE VOYAGE OF THE DAWN TREADER is the somewhat delayed film in the series. I say somewhat delayed because the last film, the mighty good PRINCE CASPIAN that came out in 2008, did not perform as well as expected, causing a third film to be questioned. But the three-quel is on the way with steady-hand Michael Apted at the helm.
Because a film like REVENGE OF THE FALLEN raked in big bucks, we’ve not seen the end of films that cater to the lower common denominator under guise of family entertainment. And if DIARY does not perform well, especially given the huge number of screens afforded it (some 3100 plus), Hollywood might take that as a mandate that “kid-friendly” just doesn’t pay. The future of what you watch is based on what you choose to watch. Audiences control the future…
