Rating: PG-13, for intense sequences of destruction, mayhem and creature violence.
Well, it’s a monster movie, so you can count on mass urban destruction and masses fleeing in terror. This time, the big green guy stomps his way across San Francisco as he battles a couple of other enormous creatures who thrive on radioactive materials. Thousands and thousands of people find themselves in peril including a school bus full of kids on the Golden Gate Bridge. It’s big and noisy and scary, as you would expect from a sci-fi summer blockbuster. But the 3-D special effects in director Gareth Edwards’ film are really sharp here — crisp, textural, visceral — making some of the battle sequences truly tense and terrifying. The sound design is also quite vivid, full of ominous creaks, groans and roars. This is probably suitable for kids around age 10 and older.
Rating: PG, for mild language and suggestive content.
This feel-good Disney sports movie — which is very much its own genre, with its own formula — is based on the true story of the search for baseball talent in India. Jon Hamm stars as agent J.B. Bernstein, who brings a couple of kids to the United States who’ve never played baseball and arranges training for them with the hope that they’ll become major-league pitchers. It’s an extremely wholesome story for the most part. The guys go to a lavish party where there’s poolside drinking with bikini-clad beauties, and one character who’d never tasted alcohol before ends up gulping down too much punch with messy consequences. There’s also the suggestion that Hamm’s character spends the night with the woman who’s renting out his guesthouse, played by Lake Bell, but we don’t see anything beyond some chaste kissing. This is fine for the whole family.
