Not recommended under 5, PG to 8 (Violence and scary scenes)
This topic contains:
Children under 5 | Not recommended due to violence and scary scenes |
Children 5-8 | Parental guidance recommended due to violence and scary scenes |
Children 9 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: | Amazing World of Gumball, The |
Classification: | PG |
Consumer advice lines: | Mild comedic violence |
Length: | 68 minutes |
This review of the movie contains the following information:
The Amazing World of Gumball is a series of short TV cartoons made for the big screen. Gumball (voiced by Logan Grove) is a 12 year old cat who lives with his Mum and Dad, the Wattersons, his sister Anais (Kyla Rae Kowalewski), and his best friend Darwin (Kwesi Boakye) who used to be a goldfish but grew legs and became an honorary kid. Gumball’s Dad is a pink rabbit who spends most of his time watching TV and playing video games, while his highly strung Mum works long hours to feed the family.
Gumball often finds himself in trouble and although he tries to do the right thing, he often makes matters much worse. Gumball has lots of adventures, solves mysteries, makes new friends and tries to help his grumpy neighbour, Mr Robinson who actually doesn’t want Gumball’s help. Mum also tries to turn Gumball into a ‘winner’ by forcing him to do extreme things.
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 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.
There is a lot of cartoon violence and accidental harm in this movie including:
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.
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 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 of concern
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
Nothing of concern
Nothing of concern
Nothing of concern
Nothing of concern
Some put downs such as “loser”
The Amazing World of Gumball is a colourful animation with lots of quirky and unusual characters, which will appeal to children. It is full of cartoon violence however, with a number of characters that may scare younger children.
The messages from this movie are quite mixed and may be confusing for children. For example, one episode implies that ‘Mother knows best’ while in another Gumball’s mother is making him do terrible things.
This movie could also give parents the opportunity to discuss with their children attitudes and behaviours, and their real-life consequences, such as:
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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