Monster Family 2

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Not suitable under 8; parental guidance to 10 (animated violence, themes and scary scenes)

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This topic contains:

  • overall comments and recommendations
  • details of classification and consumer advice lines for Monster Family 2
  • a review of Monster Family 2 completed by the Australian Council on Children and the Media (ACCM) on 10 March 2022.

Overall comments and recommendations

Children under 8 Not suitable due to animated violence, themes and scary scenes.
Children aged 8–10 Parental guidance recommended due to animated violence, themes and scary scenes.
Children over the age of 10 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: Monster Family 2
Classification: PG
Consumer advice lines: Some scenes may scare young children
Length: 103 minutes

ACCM review

This review of the movie contains the following information:

A synopsis of the story

In order to stay in their human form, the Wishbones are supposed to be a happy family. But mum, Emma (voice of Emily Watson), and Dad, Frank (voice of Nick Frost), are far from perfect.; and Faye (voice of Jessica Brown Findlay) and Max (voice of Ethan Rouse) are far from happy. Their old friend, Baba Yaga (voice of Catherine Tate), is abducted from her own wedding by Mila (voice of Emily Carey), a young girl whose famous parents, Maddox (voice of Daniel Ben-Zenou) and Marlene Starr (voice of Emma Tate), have sent her out on missions to capture monsters from around the world and bring them back to their secret lab so that they can be of benefit for the greater good – or so they say. When the Wishbones’ attempts to save Baba Yaga fail, they find themselves transformed once again into a vampire, Frankenstein, a mummy and a werewolf. Together they set off to find Mila and try to stop her from abducting all the other ‘monsters’ as well. Meanwhile, after her interactions with the Wishbones, Mila begins to see that perhaps her family is not so perfect after all. With the help of Max, Mila finally finds the courage to confront her parents and learns that not only is she not their daughter but they have merely been using her and the creatures she captured to create a ‘perfect daughter’ whom they call ‘Mila 2.0’. Together, Mila and the Wishbones set about undoing all the damage the Starrs have done and together they learn that no family is perfect and that having imperfections is part of who they are.

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.

Abduction; Deceitfulness; Bullying; The negative role social media can play in the lives of adolescents; The pressure to be perfect.

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 violence in this movie, including:

  • Mila breaks into Dracula’s prison, burns him with the sun’s rays, kicks his legs out from under him, shoves him into a wall, traps him under a fallen chandelier, knocks out one of his teeth, and kidnaps him by enclosing him in a flying bubble.
  • A character is shocked by lightning.
  • Someone hacks into Max’s account and uploads an unflattering video of him dancing and falling.
  • Max struggles to fit into his pants and is teased about his weight.
  • Fay throws an object at Max and knocks a frog out of the window.
  • Baba Yaga is captured by a drone and held dangling in the air, where she smashes into walls as the family tries to fight Mila for control. The family is defeated and Baba Yaga, bruised and with a black eye, is flown away. Max grabs on at the last minute but falls off when Mila weaves dangerously through traffic. He falls into the middle of the road, after nearly being hit by a car, wearing just his underwear and shirt.
  • Mila slams Emma into a wall and knocks Frankenstein out with a helmet. He collapses on Emma, pinning her to the ground.
  • Max bites Mila.
  • Mila shoots the Loch Ness Monster with a shrinking gun. She later shoots a Yeti and King Kong with the same gun.
  • A woman’s limp hand dangles down from an overhead compartment on Dracula Air.
  • A man is hit in the head by a bowling ball.
  • A giant Yeti and Frankenstein smash each other with snowballs.
  • Fay causes an avalanche with excessive swirling and Mila falls over a cliff.
  • The Starrs tell Mila 2.0 to kill Mila. They fight and fall; Mila 2.0 rips the flying pack from Mila’s back, causing her to plummet towards the ground.
  • Mila 2.0 repeatedly says things like: “I will end your imperfect life”.
  • Max shoots Mr Starr with the shrink gun. Later, Mrs. Starr and Dracula are also shrunken.
  • Max tries to save Mila and he jumps after her. Mila 2.0 comes after both of them. She only stops when her shrunken parents fly their aircraft into them, hitting Mila 2.0 who falls towards the ground. Mila and Max make their way through the falling debris and land safely. It is assumed that Mila 2.0 and the Starrs are destroyed or killed.

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:

  • There is a creepy water scene where Max follows Mila into Loch Ness and he must pass through a dark cave full of eerie seagrass. Nothing happens but the search may be suspenseful and worrisome for very young viewers.

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.

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:

  • The scene in which the Starrs tell Mila that she is not their daughter, not a good daughter and that they don’t want her, may upset some children. It is very cruel as they try to replace Mila and gets even more disturbing when they order their new daughter to kill her. Mila 2.0 is ruthless and driven and will stop at nothing to end Mila’s life and the lives of anyone who try to help her.

Aged eight to thirteeninfo

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.

  • Nothing further of concern.

Product placement

  • None noted.

Sexual references

  • None noted.

Nudity and sexual activity

There is some nudity and sexual activity in this movie, including:

  • Mila kisses Max by accident while they are fighting and she lands on top of him.
  • A spell wears off and Max’s pants shrink to their normal size, he can’t do the button and they fall down, exposing his underwear. Two girls from his school witness this and laugh at him while filming the moment and then uploading it to social media.

Use of substances

  • None noted.

Coarse language

There is some coarse language in this movie, including:

  • One character is called a “nerd”
  • Mila repeatedly calls Max, “Pizza Boy”, trying to annoy him while alluding to his chubby stomach and the fact that he must eat a lot of pizza.

In a nutshell

Monster Family 2 is an animated sequel to the first Monster Family film. While the main message about finding perfection inside yourself even when you are not perfect, is important, the plot and dialogue leave much to be desired. Due to the themes and a couple scary scenes this is not a film for younger children but rather one that families might watch together when the kids are older. It will be best enjoyed by fans of the first film.

The main messages from this movie are that nobody is perfect and that it is OK because our imperfections make us who we are.

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

  • Compassion
  • Courage
  • Persistence
  • Forgiveness
  • Helpfulness.

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

  • Blindly doing what someone tells you to do, especially if it seems wrong.
  • Bullying others either in person or on-line.
  • Taking what does not belong to you, especially when it is a living creature.
  • Trying to always be perfect.