Parental GuidanceMovie Reviews

No
Avg. Critic Score: 36 out of 100 Generally unfavorable reviews Metascore® based on all critic reviews
Information for Parents:
9 OK for kids 9+
Read Common Sense Media review

Critic scores range from 0 to 100, with higher scores indicating more favorable reviews.

  • 75
    Philadelphia Inquirer | Carrie Rickey

    Parental Guidance is an engaging comedy that bridges multiple generation gaps, making it that rare movie that grandparents, their kids, and their kids can enjoy. Read full review

  • 60
    New York Daily News | Elizabeth Weitzman

    Crystal and Midler are such confident pros that their crack timing elevates even substandard material. Read full review

  • 50
    The Globe and Mail (Toronto) | Liam Lacey

    Parental Guidance is one of those intergenerational embarrassment comedies in the "Meet the Fockers" line, where children can enjoy seeing grown-ups looking ridiculous. Read full review

  • 50
    San Francisco Chronicle | Peter Hartlaub

    Perhaps anticipating an older audience, most of the lessons are one-sided, with the old-timers seemingly harming the children while actually saving them. Read full review

  • 50
    Boston Globe | Wesley Morris

    Parental Guidance is overly generous with regard to the silliness. However, it's not clueless. Crystal seems determined to give as generously as he gets. When a bully whacks him, Crystal covers the bully in vomit. Good for him. Read full review

  • 50
    Chicago Tribune | Michael Phillips

    The pathos: considerable. The sight gags, involving Crystal puking chili dog on a kid's face, or the grandson with an imaginary friend peeing and causing an X Games skateboarder to wipe out: artless. The results: tolerably amusing. Read full review

  • 50
    Entertainment Weekly | Owen Gleiberman

    In the occasionally funny but mostly facile '80s-style culture-clash comedy Parental Guidance, Billy Crystal, who now resembles a very cute puffer fish, plays Artie Decker. Read full review

  • 50
    The Hollywood Reporter | Michael Rechtshaffen

    Billy Crystal and Bette Midler hustle to peddle the threadbare material that makes Andy Fickman's comedy a perfectly tolerable, if uninspired, moviegoing experience. Read full review

  • 38
    USA Today | Scott Bowles

    The movie spends too much time wedging the couple into a May-December moment, where Crystal cracks nostalgic about the good old days. It's sweet, but it grows old. Read full review

  • 25
    New York Post | Sara Stewart

    Parental Guidance kicks off with a mean-spirited joke about an overweight woman and heads downhill from there. Read full review

View more reviews for Parental Guidance on Metacritic

Information for Parents
Common Sense Media says OK for kids 9+ Predictable family comedy isn't deserving of its stars.
What Parents Need to Know Parents need to know that Parental Guidance is a mostly kid-friendly family comedy about the tension between grandparents' old-style parenting and their daughter and son-in-law's Type-A helicopter parenting. There's some rude and scatological humor -- e.g. "poopy head," "fartie Artie," a grandfather being hit in the testicles with a baseball bat, and a man vomiting on a child. A grandfather's suggestion to stick up for yourself leads to his grandson punching his bully and then getting hit in the eye in response. Several brands are mentioned, particularly ESPN, but the product placements aren't generally overwhelming. There's a little drinking by adults, some mild suggestiveness (including references to a couple's romantic role playing), and some kissing.
  • Families can talk about how the movie portrays different parenting styles. Is it funny to see how the two generations differ? Is it just a generational "thing"? If not, what accounts for the differences? Is one style "right" and the other "wrong"?
  • Can you think of other movies that feature comical relationships between grandparents, adult children, and kids? How does this one compare to those?
  • Who do you think the movie is intended to appeal to most? Why? Does it succeed?
The good stuff
  • message true4 Positive messages: The movie's main message is the importance of staying close to your parents, especially when you're an adult with children of your own. The importance and benefits of inter-generational families are stressed.
  • rolemodels true3 Positive role models: Diane is trying to be a more attentive mother and grandmother, and she does her best to reconcile with her estranged adult child and get to know her grandkids.
What to watch for
  • violence false2 Violence: A grandfather is struck in the testicles with a baseball bat and then vomits on a kid. A boy hits his bully in the eye and is then struck in response. A famous skateboarder falls on the halfpipe after a boy pees on it.
  • sex false2 Sexy stuff: Mild suggestiveness and a couple of slow dances and kisses between Alice and Phil. There's a running joke that a married couple occasionally role plays being an English punk lover and his girlfriend. Artie and Diane hug.
  • language false1 Language: Insults like "stupid," "poopyhead," "fartie," and other silly names. A fair bit of scatological humor, such as a boy peeing on a halfpipe and an adult getting hit in the testicles and then vomiting on a boy.
  • consumerism false3 Consumerism: ESPN, the X Games, Tony Hawk, Apple products (including MacBooks and iPods), and the San Francisco Giants are all featured in the movie.
  • drugsalcoholtobacco false1 Drinking, drugs and smoking: Adults drink on vacation.
An independent nonprofit dedicated to providing families the information they need to help kids thrive in a world of media and technology. © Common Sense Media Inc. 2010. All rights reserved.

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Dave White

0.5

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Grandpa knows best. Even when he clearly doesn't. Read full review See Dave White's on MOVIENAME on Movies.com

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