Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo

image for Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo

Short takes

Not suitable under 5; parental guidance to 5 (violence, reckless behaviour, dated stereotyping)

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This topic contains:

  • overall comments and recommendations
  • details of classification and consumer advice lines for Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo
  • a review of Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo completed by the Australian Council on Children and the Media (ACCM) on 25 May 2023.

Overall comments and recommendations

Children under 5 Not suitable due to comedy/slapstick violence, reckless behaviour, and some dated stereotyping – may also lack interest.
Children aged 5 Parental guidance recommended due to comedy/slapstick violence, reckless behaviour, and some dated stereotyping – may also lack interest.
Children aged 6 and over Ok for this age group.

About the movie

This section contains details about the movie, including its classification by the Australian Government Classification Board and the associated consumer advice lines. Other classification advice (OC) is provided where the Australian film classification is not available.

Name of movie: Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo
Classification: G
Consumer advice lines: The content is very mild in impact
Length: 100 minutes

ACCM review

This review of the movie contains the following information:

A synopsis of the story

Herbie, the charming little Volkswagen Beetle with a mind of its own, is back! After a 12-year break from racing, Herbie, his owner Tim Douglas (Dean Jones), and mechanic Wheelie Applegate (Don Knotts), travel to Europe for a spectacular comeback: Winning the notorious Trans-France Race, from Paris to Monte Carlo, would be the perfect kick-start to revive, and also finance, Jim and Herbie's racing career.

Of course, things are never as straight-forward as simply entering and winning a race: Everything gets complicated when two thieves, Max (Bernard Fox) and Quincey (Roy Kinnear), steal a precious diamond from a museum in Paris, and – nearly getting caught red-handed – hide the jewel in Herbie's fuel tank. Of course, they want to get their loot back and consequently cause all sorts of interferences. And then, there is Giselle – a Lancia Scorpion who, like Herbie, also turns out to have its own mind, and who Herbie falls head-over-heels in love with. Unfortunately, Giselle's driver, Diane Darcy (Julie Sommars), isn't convinced at first and accuses Jim of trying to stop her from winning.

Will Jim and Herbie manage to overcome all those obstacles and beat their opponents, and, will there be a happy ending for the love bugs Herbie and Giselle?

Themesinfo

Children and adolescents may react adversely at different ages to themes of crime, suicide, drug and alcohol dependence, death, serious illness, family breakdown, death or separation from a parent, animal distress or cruelty to animals, children as victims, natural disasters and racism. Occasionally reviews may also signal themes that some parents may simply wish to know about.

Car Racing; Action; Adventure; Humour; Love Story; Disney Classic.

Use of violenceinfo

Research shows that children are at risk of learning that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution when violence is glamourised, performed by an attractive hero, successful, has few real life consequences, is set in a comic context and / or is mostly perpetrated by male characters with female victims, or by one race against another.

Repeated exposure to violent content can reinforce the message that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution. Repeated exposure also increases the risks that children will become desensitised to the use of violence in real life or develop an exaggerated view about the prevalence and likelihood of violence in their own world.

There is some slapstick/comedy violence in this movie, including:

  • If Herbie does not get his way, he takes over, leaving the drivers getting thrown around in the car and out of control.
  • A race opponent pushes Herbie off the track, not considering the potential danger that might put the drivers in.
  • The thieves pull out a pistol on a few occasions, threatening to shoot if they don't get what they are asking for.
  • Jim, Wheelie, and the thieves get into a fight, during which Jim punches one of them.

Material that may scare or disturb children

Under fiveinfo

Children under five are most likely to be frightened by scary visual images, such as monsters, physical transformations.

In addition to the above-mentioned violent scenes, there are some scenes in this movie that could scare or disturb children under the age of five, including the following:

  • Jim takes a wrong turn, ending up on a narrow mountain road. When Wheelie opens the door, he nearly falls down a steep cliff.

Aged five to eightinfo

Children aged five to eight will also be frightened by scary visual images and will also be disturbed by depictions of the death of a parent, a child abandoned or separated from parents, children or animals being hurt or threatened and / or natural disasters.

  • Nothing further noted.

Product placement

The following products are displayed or used in this movie:

  • Volkswagen Beetle
  • Lancia Scorpion.

Sexual references

  • None noted.

Nudity and sexual activity

  • None noted.

Use of substances

  • None noted.

Coarse language

  • None noted.

In a nutshell

Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo is a 1977 Disney classic and the third film of the "Herbie" series. The usual recipe of taking a strong-willed and quirky little car that has a human-like mind of its own; a couple of determined, yet incompetent, scoundrels and opponents; some good-old slapstick humour; and exciting racing scenes works once more to provide fun for the family, and there are a number of positive messages to be taken away.

The main messages from this movie are that there is no such things as a perfect crime; and that love will find a way, regardless of the obstacles.

Values in this movie that parents may wish to reinforce with their children include:

  • Teamwork
  • Friendship
  • Doing the right thing
  • Never giving up
  • Winning is not necessarily the most important thing.

This movie could also give parents the opportunity to discuss with their children attitudes and behaviours, and their real-life consequences, such as:

  • Being a bad sport: Jim's opponents take all sorts of unfair measures to rid themselves of Herbie but they pay for it and lose out in the end.
  • Committing crimes and being dishonest: despite their best efforts, the thieves get found out and will have to pay for their crimes.