Sloth Lane, The

image for Sloth Lane, The

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Not suitable under 7; parental guidance to 8 (scary scenes and themes)

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This topic contains:

  • overall comments and recommendations
  • details of classification and consumer advice lines for Sloth Lane, The
  • a review of Sloth Lane, The completed by the Australian Council on Children and the Media (ACCM) on 29 July 2024.

Overall comments and recommendations

Children under 7 Not suitable due to scary scenes and themes.
Children aged 7–8 Parental guidance recommended due to scary scenes and themes.
Children aged 9 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: Sloth Lane, The
Classification: PG
Consumer advice lines: Mild themes, some scenes may scare young children
Length: 89 minutes

ACCM review

This review of the movie contains the following information:

A synopsis of the story

Laura Flores (voice of Teo Vergara) is a young sloth who is impatient with her family’s slow speed. Her mum Gabriella (Olivia Vasquez) cooks the food for their family restaurant, preparing each recipe slowly and carefully from her much-treasured family recipe book. When their home is destroyed by a very bad storm, the Flores family travel to Sanctuary City in their mobile café, taking the salvaged recipe book with them.

They discover that they are in competition with a fast-food outlet called ‘Food is Fuel’, which is run by an enterprising leopard named Dotti (Leslie Jones). Laura manages to convince her family that they need to change their business model if they are to compete. Laura researches the Food is Fuel outlet and discovers some disturbing facts. When Dotti starts losing business to the more wholesome food, she is intent on getting her hands on Gabriella’s recipe book, and she is also prepared to go to extreme lengths to save her business.

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.

Family traditions; Culture; Business ethics; Unethical scientific research; Zombies.

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:

  • Dotti is prone to fits of rage and throws objects at her staff and shouts at them.
  • Laura is restrained by a giant burger while Dotti steals the recipe book from her. Laura is then thrown out onto the street.
  • A toad throws an object onto the darkened glass, cracking the window.
  • Laura and Gabriella fight verbally.
  • Laura and her friends fire guacamole at the zombies.

Other ‘comic’ violence includes:

  • Laura trips and falls, dropping a plate of food on a customer’s lap
  • Gabriella smacks Mani (Laura’s brother) on the hand for stealing food.
  • Laura accidentally knocks a machine over, causing a fire in the kitchen.

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:

  • Some scary-looking characters, such as illuminated creatures that chase after other characters.
  • Sudden surprises and loud shouts.
  • Storms with loud thunder and lightning.

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:

  • Laura imagines a story in which her parents are explorers and they are chased by a giant ball. Hands come out of the ball and try to grab them.
  • A bad storm approaches the town – very dark clouds, lightning and loud thunder claps. Everything in the house starts to shake and Laura and her family just make it to an underground shelter before a large tree falls on top of them.
  • The family are very sad to see everything in the house destroyed.
  • The zombies are scary-looking with dark, glazed eyes and outstretched arms.

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.

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:

  • A giant hamburger leads Laura down a dark passage where there are windows clouded over. Shapes are seen behind the glass and occasionally a hand splatters on the window. A toad’s face is seen squashed against the glass.
  • Laura’s family get trapped inside the corridor. Many hands are seen on the darkened windows which eventually break. Zombie type characters, who were previous customers, appear in the corridor. Everyone they touch turns into a zombie. Laura’s family all turn into zombies, apart from her, and they chase after Laura in a disturbing scene.
  • Laura’s Mum is losing her memory and is afraid of forgetting her children.

Thirteen and overinfo

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 further noted.

Product placement

  • None noted.

Sexual references

There are some sexual references in this movie, including:

  • Gabriella and her husband Luis often hug and kiss each other.

Nudity and sexual activity

  • None noted.

Use of substances

  • None noted.

Coarse language

There is some coarse language in this movie, including:

  • Hell no
  • It sucks.

In a nutshell

The Sloth Lane is an Australian, animated adventure drama about the importance of family, culture and traditions. However, it is quite scary in places and is therefore not suitable for under 7’s, and parental guidance is recommended for 7 to 8-year-olds.

The main messages from this movie are the importance of family and keeping family traditions alive.

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

  • Loyalty
  • Friendship
  • Courage
  • Kindness
  • Openness to change
  • Taking risks.

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

  • Dotti didn’t treat her staff well and should have faced the consequences.
  • Life doesn’t need to be lived in the fast lane – often the slow, tried and true methods are better.