Not suitable under 11; parental guidance to 12 (violence, themes)
This topic contains:
Children under 11 | Not suitable due to high level of violence and themes. |
Children aged 11–12 | Parental guidance recommended due to high level of violence. |
Children aged 13 and over | Ok for this age 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: | Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes |
Classification: | M |
Consumer advice lines: | Science fiction themes and violence |
Length: | 145 minutes |
This review of the movie contains the following information:
Many years after the death of Caesar, the apes have developed into several clans, while the humans are living a feral life. Noa (Owen Teague), a chimpanzee from the Eagle clan, undertakes a coming-of-age ritual with his friends, Anaya (Travis Jeffery) and Soona (Lydia Peckham), to gather eagles’ eggs to take back to their clan. The Eagle clan is led by Noa’s father, Koro (Neil Sandilands). On returning to their clan, the three friends are followed by a human girl. Noa confronts the girl and a tussle occurs that results in the breaking of Noa’s egg. He must return to find another but, while he’s away, his clan is attacked by a large and intimidating ape named Sylva (Eka Darville) with his masked followers. Noa’s village is burnt to the ground and all of his clan are captured, while Koro is killed.
Noa sets out on a journey to find his clan and along the way he meets a wise Orangutan named Raka (Peter Macon) who teaches Noa about Caesar’s enlightened ways. They discover the girl is still following and Raka shows her compassion. They name her Nova, but her real name is Mae (Freya Allen), and they are surprised to discover she can speak. Mae promises to take them to where Noa’s clan is being held captive by another large ape who has proclaimed himself to be Proximus Caesar (Kevin Durand). Proximus is keeping the apes to work as slaves, attempting to open a vault that holds many of the original human race’s technological secrets. Mae has her own reasons to enter the vault but she needs to keep Noa on her side as they battle against Proximus and his large army.
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.
Science Fiction; The fall of the human race; Animals and humans in peril.
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 a lot of violence in this movie, 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.
In addition to the above-mentioned violent scenes, there are some scenes in this movie that could scare or disturb children aged eight to thirteen, including the following:
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.
There is some coarse language in this movie, including:
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes is a science fiction, dystopian action movie. The representation of the apes is amazingly realistic, while the theory of humans being reduced to lower than the apes by a Simian Flu is quite disturbing. The Eagle clan try to follow Caesar’s law, that apes should not kill other apes, but not all ape clans do. Younger viewers will find the movie quite scary and it is therefore unsuitable for under 10’s, and aimed more for older teens and adults.
The main messages from this movie are that good overcomes evil; and to fight for your own beliefs.
Values in this movie that parents may wish to reinforce with their children include:
This movie could also give parents the opportunity to discuss with their children attitudes and behaviours, and their real-life consequences, 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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