Children’s Movie Reviews

Beastly

As his name suggests, Kyle Kingson (Alex Pettyfer) is an heir apparent. His dad Rob (Peter Krause) is a TV newsman, focused on his career and, even more intently, his appearance. Of this Kyle is reminded daily, as his dad’s face is emblazoned on billboards and bus-sides, while the real thing barely glances his way at the kitchen table, because he’s too engrossed in his BlackBerry.
Rango

At the start of the movie named for him, Rango (voiced by Johnny Depp) has no name. A chameleon living inside a glass tank, he’s surrounded by plastic objects — a tree, a doll’s torso, a fish — and, inside his extremely limited universe, he’s quite able to entertain himself inside his tank. But one day, as he’s riding in his tank in the back seat of his human family’s car, a traffic mishap lands him on the highway, surrounded now by shattered glass.
I Am Number Four

Tall, athletic, and tanned, John Smith (Alex Pettyfer) looks like other high school boys in the movies. What his classmates don’t know, however, is that he’s an alien from another planet, and moreover, that he’s an alien being pursued by other aliens.
Gnomeo & Juliet

“The story you are about to see has been told many times before,” announces a garden gnome. This version will be different, he insists, just before he begins to read the “long, boring, prologue” concerning star-cross’d lovers. If his prodigiously pointy hat and short stature didn’t clue you in before, his swift and slapsticky removal from the stage makes clear that Gnomeo & Juliet is not your regular Shakespearean tragedy.
The Green Hornet

As a child, Britt Reid (Joshua Chandler Erenberg) tries hard to please his father (Tom Wilkinson). But dad’s not only distracted by running the biggest newspaper in Los Angeles, the Daily Sentinel, he’s also demanding, expecting his boy to be perfect: “Trying doesn’t matter,” he barks, “If you always fail.” When he goes on to pull the head off Britt’s favorite superhero action figure, the boy’s fate is re-set: he will now do his best to annoy his father.
Gulliver's Travels

In this very loose adaptation Jonathan Swift’s 18th-century satire, Lemuel Gulliver (Jack Black) works in a New York newspaper mailroom. Though he has a crush on the charismatic travel editor, Darcy (Amanda Peet), he’s reluctant even to speak to her, let alone ask her out, feeling daunted that she has a better job than his, making him feel like one of the “little people.”
Tron: Legacy

Sam Flynn first appears in Tron: Legacy as a child, eager to spend time with his father Kevin (Jeff Bridges). The year is 1989 (that is, around the time of the original film, 1982’s Tron) and Kevin is still the dazzling young software engineer he was back then. (At least, you’re asked to believe mostly that, as he appears in deep shadows, with his back to the camera, and in a couple of awkwardly digitized shots.)
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

The third film in the Chronicles of Narnia franchise begins again during the Second World War, circa 1940. Establishing the era with barely a minute’s worth of shorthand images — a plane in the sky, a British soldier on the street — the film proceeds to re-introduce the younger Pevensies, Lucy (Georgie Henley) and her brother Edmund (Skandar Keynes), living near Cambridge, England, with their aunt and uncle and wholly obnoxious cousin Eustace Scrubb (Will Poulter). While their older siblings are away — Peter (William Moseley) studying for exams and Susan (Anna Popplewell) in America —…
Tangled

“The outside world is a dangerous place, full of selfish people.” So warns Mother Gothel (Donna Murphy), determined to keep her young charge, Rapunzel (Mandy Moore) confined to the tower where she’s lived most of her 18 years. What she doesn’t tell Rapunzel is this: Mother Gothel is herself one of those selfish people, having long ago kidnapped Rapunzel as a baby, in order to gain access to the girl’s magical hair.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1

It’s the beginning of the end. This much is evident in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1. As it follows the first two-thirds of the last book in J.K. Rowling’s series, the kids are mostly grown up, their figures fully formed and their faces, more often than not, worried. And this time, as Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe), Ron Weasley (Rupert Grint) and Hermione Granger (Emma Watson) leave behind their Muggle families, they can’t go back to Hogwarts, the school where they learned to be wizards over the previous six movies. Now they’re on their own, without parents or teachers. Young…