Tad the Explorer: The Mummy Adventure

image for Tad the Explorer: The Mummy Adventure

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

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This topic contains:

  • overall comments and recommendations
  • details of classification and consumer advice lines for Tad the Explorer: The Mummy Adventure
  • a review of Tad the Explorer: The Mummy Adventure completed by the Australian Council on Children and the Media (ACCM) on 12 December 2022.

Overall comments and recommendations

Children under 8 Not suitable due to scary and violent scenes and themes.
Children aged 8–10 Parental guidance recommended due to scary and violent scenes and themes.
Children over the age of 10 Ok for this age group, though may lack interest for older viewers.

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: Tad the Explorer: The Mummy Adventure
Classification: PG
Consumer advice lines: Mild fantasy themes
Length: 89 minutes

ACCM review

This review of the movie contains the following information:

A synopsis of the story

Tad the Explorer: The Mummy Adventure is the latest in a series of animated, comedy adventure films about aspiring but accident-prone archaeologist, Tad Jones. The film is Spanish, but dubbed in English.

The film opens with Tad (voice of Trevor White) working as an assistant on a dig in Mexico. In characteristic style, he accidentally opens a secret door and finds himself in a giant chamber where he makes the unlikely discovery of an Egyptian sarcophagus. When Tad reports his find, the professional archaeologists ridicule his report and he is fired from the dig – They then claim his finding as their own.

Determined to investigate further, Tad finds the sarcophagus in a museum and manages to open it, releasing an Egyptian mummy named Ramona (voice of Pippa Bennett-Warner) and unleashing a curse connected with a mysterious emerald tablet. To his horror, the curse transforms his friends from previous adventures – Mummy, an Incan mummy; Jeff the dog; and Belzoni the parrot – into strange creatures.

Pursued by crime fighters and the professional archaeologists, Tad and Sara (voice of Alex Wells) now go on an action-packed and dangerous quest to discover the emerald tablet and free their friends from the curse. They travel to Paris to find information from Napoleonic times hidden under the Louvre and then to Egypt. Along the way they meet up with Victoria Moon (voice of Elena Sanz), a researcher of the occult, who offers to help and follows them before becoming affected by the curse herself.

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.

Archaeology; the Ancient World; the Supernatural; Curses and being cursed.

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 are frequent scenes of violence and accidental harm in this movie, including:

  • Soldiers shooting at Tad and his companions.
  • Fights including hitting, kicking and grabbing.
  • Verbal violence such as the archaeologists shouting at, and belittling, Tad.
  • A boat chase on the Seine in which the main characters, in a small motorised bath tub, are chased by larger boats and finally crash through the crime fighters’ large boat and escape.
  • Plenty of slapstick violence and injury which, while played for comedy, may worry young children.

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:

  • Frequent scenes with scary music, dark and sinister spaces, crumbling and moving structures, strange lights and loud noises.
  • Many scenes where the main characters are in peril and look scared.
  • Tad’s friend Mummy is a scary-looking character who first appears suddenly in a fright moment as Tad draws back the shower curtain in his flat.
  • Under the influence of the curse, Mummy is transformed into a large, scary and threatening monster, combining a crocodile and a leopard, which can also fly.
  • The curse combines Jeff and Belzoni into a single creature.
  • When Victoria becomes affected by the curse she turns against Tad and Sara, and her eyes become green and glow eerily.
  • The abyss, seen towards the end of the film, contains turbulent water with scary, tentacled monsters.

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:

  • Children in this age group are also likely to be scared by the scenes mentioned above.

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:

  • Younger children in this age group may also be scared by some of the scenes described above.

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 of concern.

Product placement

The following products are displayed or used in this movie:

  • Mummy is hooked on his mobile phone, obsessively buying online and posting to social media, but this is shown as detrimental and Tad throws the phone away.

Sexual references

  • None noted.

Nudity and sexual activity

  • None noted.

Use of substances

  • None noted.

Coarse language

There is some coarse language in this movie, including:

  • A fart joke, which occurs twice, about Mummy having “gas” when the characters are confined in a crate.
  • Mild insults, such as “loser”, directed at Tad by the professional archaeologists.

In a nutshell

Tad the Explorer: The Mummy Adventure (also known as, Tad the Lost Explorer and the Emerald Tablet) is an animated, comedy adventure suitable for older, primary school children and likely to also appeal to younger teens, but unlikely to have much appeal for older viewers. Scary scenes and themes, and violence make it unsuitable for under 8s.

The main message from this movie is that loyalty and friendship, as demonstrated by both Tad and Sara, are more important than fame.

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

  • Perseverance as shown by Tad in following his dream of becoming an archaeologist and by Sara in working to help him.
  • Selflessness as shown by Tad in making his final decision.

Parents of younger viewers may need to discuss the two alternative endings we see in the film and the choice made by Tad.