Big Bad Fox and Other Tales, The

image for Big Bad Fox and Other Tales, The

Short takes

Parental guidance to 5, suitable for general audiences.

Age
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
classification logo

This topic contains:

  • overall comments and recommendations
  • details of classification and consumer advice lines for Big Bad Fox and Other Tales, The
  • a review of Big Bad Fox and Other Tales, The completed by the Australian Council on Children and the Media (ACCM) on 27 May 2019.

Overall comments and recommendations

Children under 5 Parental guidance is recommended to the age of five due to name calling and reckless, animated behaviour.
Children aged 5–8 Children over the age of five could see this film with or without parental guidance.

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: Big Bad Fox and Other Tales, The
Classification: G
Consumer advice lines: Suitable for general audiences
Length: 83 minutes

ACCM review

This review of the movie contains the following information:

A synopsis of the story

The Big Bad Fox and Other Tales is a three act film. During the first segment, a high strung Pig (Justin Edwards) is roped into helping deliver a baby for an injured stork after an incompetent Rabbit (Adrian Edmondson) and Duck (Bill Bailey) volunteer to do it. Rabbit and Duck attempt numerous harebrained schemes that always go awry, while Pig tries to keep one step ahead of the chaos in order to get the infant delivered in time. In the second segment a hungry fox (Giles New), tired of eating turnips, enlists the help a wily wolf (Matthew Goode) to help him find food. Together they hatch a plot to take eggs from a mother hen (Celia Imrie), raise them till they are fat and juicy and then eat them up. However the fox did not count on the chicks believing him to be their mother and the wolf did not count on the fact that the fox would fall in love with the chicks. The chicks soon learn to defend themselves and the fox and wolf learn lessons in humility. In the Final act Duck and Rabbit think they kill Santa after their attempt at rescuing a Christmas decoration goes horribly wrong. They set off to save Christmas with the help of Pig. While many mistakes are made and nothing is turning out how they’d hoped or planned they find themselves in the right place at the right time and it looks like they may just play a role in saving Christmas after all.

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:

  • Pig attacks Rabbit and Duck after they demolish his garden while trying to help him.
  • When Duck and Rabbit try to catapult the baby back to its home they accidentally catapult Pig instead. He flies through the air and returns looking angry and dishevelled.
  • The rabbit and duck fight over a steering wheel, which then breaks off and causes the truck to go over an embankment into a lake, throwing all the passengers into the bushes, except for the baby who lands on a lily pad.
  • There are giant fish with huge teeth that chase Pig in the lake.
  • A hunter shoots Rabbit with a tranquilizer dart. Duck then attacks the hunters.
  • The stork is catapulted away from the farm.
  • A mother chicken hits and kicks a fox repeatedly.
  • The fox and wolf pretend to fight.
  • A bunch of hens chase and hit a dog and later attack a wolf.
  • Rabbit and Duck blow up a lawn mower.
  • Rabbit and Duck crash into a lady at the shops and are then taken by animal control.
  • The friends are threatened by a bunch of dogs in the animal shelter and one is kicked into the sky and out of the pen.

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:

  • The wolf roars at the fox a couple of times in a loud and ferocious manner and, like the fox, threatens to eat the chicks that they have stolen from the farm yard.

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:

  • There is nothing in this film that would frighten children over the age of five.

Product placement

There is no product placement in this film.

Sexual references

There are some sexual references in this movie, including:

  • When the baby is accidentally left on the wrong doorstep an elderly woman calls to her husband and asks if he remembers “that night…”

Nudity and sexual activity

There is no nudity or sexual activity in the film.

Use of substances

There is some use of substances in this movie, including:

  • The stork is seen drinking a cocktail from a wine glass.
  • Rabbit acts a little trippy after being shot with a tranquilizer.

 

Coarse language

There is some coarse language in this movie, including:

  • The film does not use coarse language but there is some name calling including occasional use of the word “Idiot.” As well as “Smelly Wolf” “Wimpy Wolf,” “Big, Fat, Stupid Wolf,” and “Bum Bum Face.”

In a nutshell

The Big Bad Fox and Other Tales is a collection of short stories, portrayed with simplistic animation and seamlessly dubbed in English (the original was French) by a cast of British actors. The film is suitable for family audiences and is likely to appeal to younger children.

The main messages from this movie are: to never stop trying because there is always a way if you just work hard enough, to be truthful, patient and believe in the impossible.

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

  • Persistence
  • Determination
  • Teamwork
  • Responsibility

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

  • Playing or using dangerous objects in ways they are not intended to be used, for instance using a shopping trolley as a sleigh or placing a lighted match in the petrol tank of a lawn mower to make a rocket. Duck and Rabbit often displayed silly and dangerous behaviour yet there were no physical consequences to their actions.