Lizzie McGuire Movie, The

image for Lizzie McGuire Movie, The

Short takes

Not suitable under 5; parental guidance to 7 (lacks interest)

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This topic contains:

  • overall comments and recommendations
  • details of classification and consumer advice lines for Lizzie McGuire Movie, The
  • a review of Lizzie McGuire Movie, The completed by the Australian Council on Children and the Media (ACCM) on 10 July 2003.

Overall comments and recommendations

Children under 5 Lacks interest for this age group.
Children aged 5–7 Parental guidance recommended due to lack of interest .
Children aged 8 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: Lizzie McGuire Movie, The
Classification: G
Consumer advice lines: None
Length: 94 minutes

ACCM review

This review of the movie contains the following information:

A synopsis of the story

Lizzie McGuire is just graduating from junior high school and is called on to give the valedictory speech. She embarrasses herself and everyone else when she manages to pull the curtains down onto everyone. Dizzy Lizzie doesn’t have a lot of self confidence but aspires to be a pop singer much to the amusement of her brother. However her big chance comes when she leaves for Rome with her school mates on an excursion, under the tutelage of the stern Miss Ungermeyer. There she meets handsome Paolo who is half of a famous Italian pop duo. The other half is Isabella, who looks remarkably like Lizzie. Isabella has apparently walked out and left Paolo to perform at the music awards by himself. Paolo sees in Lizzie an opportunity to perform as the duo with Lizzie masquerading as Isabella.

Lizzie is of course thrilled and highly flattered although somewhat unsure of her abilities to sing and dance with Paolo. Lizzie has to sneak away from her group and deceives Miss Ungermeyer, in order to get away with Paolo. She has the holiday of  a lifetime riding on the back of Paolo’s Vespa and seeing all the famous sights of Rome. However all is not what it seems with Paolo who has his own secret agenda.

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.

  • No violent material was noted in this movie.

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.

  • Nothing scary was noted in this movie.

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 of concern.

Product placement

  • None noted.

Sexual references

  • None noted.

Nudity and sexual activity

  • None noted.

Use of substances

There is some use of substances in this movie, including:

  • Some drinking of alcohol in the background.

Coarse language

There is some coarse language in this movie, including:

  • Occasional use of, ‘Oh my God’.

In a nutshell

This is really a very light movie with no real take home message. However, children could get the message that deceiving their teacher by pretending to be ill pays off in the end because Lizzie gets to sing at the music awards.

Values parents may wish to encourage include loyalty. Lizzie’s friend Gordo is a very loyal friend and takes the blame for what Lizzie has done, knowing he would get sent home to America.

Values parents may wish to discourage include:

  • deceit
  • betrayal
  • lying
  • abuse of friendship
  • unkindness. Lizzie’s ex-friend Kate is very nasty to her and constantly puts her down.