Not recommended under 10, parental guidance recommended 10 to 13 due to themes and violence
This topic contains:
Children under 10 | Not recommended due to violence and themes |
Children aged 10-13 | Parental guidance recommended due to violence and themes |
Viewers aged 13 and over | OK for this group |
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: | Isle of Dogs |
Classification: | PG |
Consumer advice lines: | Mild themes, animated violence, coarse language |
Length: | 101 minutes |
This review of the movie contains the following information:
In a futuristic Japan, a man-made ‘canine flu’ ravages the dog population and the terrified human community is brainwashed into banishing their beloved pets to the wasteland of Trash Island. To set an example for his people Mayor Kobayashi (voice of Kunichi Nomura) sends Spots (Liev Schreiber), a guard dog from his own household, to the island first.
A few months later the mayor’s nephew and ward Atari (Koyu Rankin) steals a small plane in an effort to fly to the island, find his best friend Spots and bring him home. He crash lands on the island and despite his injuries is determined to rescue Spots. He is aided by a gang of dogs: Rex (Edward Norton), Duke (Jeff Goldblum), Boss (Bill Murray), Chief (Bryan Cranston) and King (Bob Balaban) who are inspired by his courage and loyalty and vow to help him no matter what consequences they may face. While they search for Spots, Chief slowly starts to bond with Atari and the Mayor uses his nephew’s disappearance against the dogs to incite more hatred and violence.
Meanwhile foreign exchange student, Tracy Walker (Greta Gerwig) launches a personal investigation against political corruption and a government conspiracy to annihilate the entire canine population. It takes cooperation and teamwork from unlikely allies to uncover the truth, expose the corruption and bring the dogs safely back home.
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.
Cruelty to animals; experiments on animals; the attempted mass killing of dogs; death of parents; suicide (briefly touched on).
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.
This film contains frequent violence, including:
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:
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.
In addition to the above-mentioned violent scenes and scary visual images, there are some scenes in this movie that could scare or disturb children aged five to eight, including the following:
Children aged eight to thirteen are most likely to be frightened by realistic threats and dangers, violence or threat of violence and / or stories in which children are hurt or threatened.
Younger children in this age group may also be disturbed by the above-mentioned scenes.
Children over the age of thirteen are most likely to be frightened by realistic physical harm or threats, molestation or sexual assault and / or threats from aliens or the occult.
Nothing of concern for this age group
Nothing of concern
There is some nudity and sexual activity in this movie, including:
There is some use of substances in this movie, including:
There is some coarse language in this movie, including:
The Isle of Dogs is a stop motion animated movie based in Japan which is most suited to some tweens, young teenagers and older viewers. The majority of the Japanese spoken in this film is not translated, though viewers can generally get the idea of what is being said. The dogs, however, speak in English. The film is broken into parts and may be difficult for younger viewers to follow. The animation can be beautiful but the background is purposefully ugly and depressing. The violence and themes make the film too scary for younger children and parental guidance is recommended for the 10 to 13 year old age group, but older children and their parents are likely to enjoy the film which has had many favourable reviews.
The main messages from this movie are to stand up for what is right, even if you are the only one standing, to fight for what you believe in even when winning appears impossible and to never give up no matter how hopeless your situation may appear.
Values in this movie that parents may wish to reinforce with their children include:
This movie could also give parents plenty to discuss with their children, such as:
Tip: Leave out the first A, An or The
Selecting an age will provide a list of movies with content suitable for this age group. Children may also enjoy movies selected via a lower age.
Content is age appropriate for children this age
Some content may not be appropriate for children this age. Parental guidance recommended
Content is not age appropriate for children this age
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ABN: 16 005 214 531