Marvel are back with another offering in the never-ending super hero saga. Avengers: Infinity War promised to be an epic, with an awful lot of favourite characters popping up to do battle against the big, scary guy. Thus, children all over the country are pestering parents to go and see this film, mainly because those characters are marketed at very young children, with toys, games and costumes a-plenty. The film, however, is a 12A, meaning it may not be suitable for under-12s. This parents' guide will help you decide if the level of violence and language in the film will be appropriate for your little one, or if you are better off leaving them at home.
I am going to try my best not to give too much away, because I realise you may want to enjoy the film yourself, but there may be an element of spoiler, where necessary, to explain a troublesome scene. Sorry about that.
The film opens with the scene of a massacre. There are many dead or dying bodies and quite a few close ups to further emphasise the carnage. The giant, scary antihero, Thanos, is pretty intimidating and introduces himself by torturing one of our beloved heroes. He then stabs and kills someone else fairly graphically with a big spear. He follows this by strangling another character slowly and noisily until he is dead with an audible snap of the neck. There is a close up of his very obviously dead face. This is just the opening scene and the film carries on in very much this style. As I've said before, in my previous Parent Guides, Marvel films are meant to be violent, that's kind of their thing and you expect lots of noise and choreographed fight scenes if you go to see one. However, it's one thing to enjoy a good old-fashioned shoot-em-up or some cartoony comic-book violence, but this film, in a similar way to Civil War, introduces an element of emotion, that leaves you feeling more invested in the characters and their demise. The death scenes are long and drawn out, there are emotional exchanges, tears and lots of close ups.
The level of threat within the film is high and constant. The violence is fairly relentless throughout and it all feels very tense for most of the film. I counted six jump scares, but I may have missed one or two. Later on in the film there is another massacre of a large group, but you don't see much, so it might pass a child by. There are several scenes of torture which are highly emotional and noisy, with lots of screaming and groaning and anguish from onlookers within the scene. There is a huge fight scene involving hand to hand combat and a lot of big scary-looking creatures. It goes on for a very long time and sees a lot of characters badly hurt. Throughout the film there were a handful of swearwords; bastards, asshole, horseshit and pissed, as well as several you probably wouldn't want your child to say to granny; douche bag, nut sack, and crap sack. There was also one inappropriate use of the middle finger. Boom. I did not spot any sexual references, or anything that would raise awkward questions on the way home.
This film is 2 hours and 45 minutes long and, as the violence and threat is relentless throughout, it might be a lot for a younger child to cope with. It really does depend on the child, and their ability to handle the noise, carnage and emotion, versus their desire to see this film. This is a decision for individual parents, but, personally, with this film in particular, I think if you are not 100% confident that your child is okay with this level of violence and peril, I would recommend watching it yourself first. If they really, really want to see it, you could always wait for the DVD, then you can at least fast forward through the worst bits!
I've never watched any films like this but my husband and our eldest tend to go to the cinema to see them! I don't think they've seen this!
ReplyDeleteI think a lot of parents will find this post/ review really helpful in deciding whether they should take their children. Sounds like a fun film to me!
ReplyDeleteThis sounds like the kind of thing my husband would love but would definitely scare our son. Thank you for such an honest review, it's really useful!
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing your honest review. I think my kids are way too young to watch this movie.
ReplyDeleteIsaac is desperate to see this and I think at 10, he should be ok
ReplyDeleteGood to know about this, my son loves these films but is older so would be OK with it all. But my younger daughter would want to be like a big brother and see this too!
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