Not recommended under 8; parental guidance recommended 8 to 12, due to violence and scary scenes
This topic contains:
Children under 8 | Not recommended due to violence and scary scenes. |
Children aged 8 to 12 | Parental guidance recommended due to violence and scary scenes. |
Children aged 12 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: | Monster Trucks |
Classification: | PG |
Consumer advice lines: | Mild themes |
Length: | 108 minutes |
This review of the movie contains the following information:
The film’s lead character Tripp (Lucas Till) is a high school student fed up with his small-town life. Tripp spends his spare time daydreaming about driving his engineless broken-down old Dodge pickup truck and escaping. One of Tripp’s problems with his home town is that it is totally dependent upon an environmentally destructive oil mining company called Terravex, run by a ruthless oil executive named Reece Tenneson (Rob Lowe).
Tripp’s life takes an unexpected turn of events when Terravex, while drilling through subterranean lakes to find oil, accidentally releases three never-before-seen sea monsters, one of which escapes.
While working at his after-school job in a junk yard, Tripp discovers the creature busy sucking the dregs from old oil drums. At first Tripp is terrified, but soon realises that the creature is intelligent and has emotions. When the creature crawls up inside the engine bay of Tripp’s pickup, it turns it into a super Monster Truck, capable of climbing walls, driving over rooftops and jumping across buildings. Tripp and the creature, whom Tripp names Creech, become the best of friends.
Meanwhile back at the Terravex oil fields, Reece Tenneson assigns a mean and tough security guard named Burke (Holt McCallany) to track down the escaped monster and return it to Terravex for disposal with the two other creatures.
Tripp and Creech now have a race against time to avoid the clutches of Burke, rescue the two imprisoned creatures, and return all three monsters to their subterranean 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.
Environmental destruction and protection; creatures in distress; greed; relationships
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.
The film contains action violence, including occasional use of guns against young people, threats of physical violence and intimidation, and some destruction of property. No actual deaths or blood and gore are depicted. Examples include:
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.
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 be scared by some of 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
The following products are displayed or used in this movie:
Nothing of concern
Drnking of spirits by one man
There is some coarse language in this movie, including:
Monster Trucks is an action, adventure targeted at young adolescents and fans of monster trucks. The story of the developing relationship between a young man and a fantastic creature is likely to entertain its target audience with both tense and silly moments throughout. It is not recommended for children under eight because of scary and violent scenes and parental guidance is recommended for the 8 to 12 year old age group.
Values in this movie that parents may wish to reinforce with their children include friendship and trust.
Parents may also wish to discuss:
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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