Parental Guidance: How Family-Friendly Are The Force Awakens and The Road Chip?

Rating: PG-13, for sci-fi action violence.

Your kids are probably busting at the seams at the very prospect of a new Star Wars movie – and so are you. And it’s great, so you can all breathe easily. If they know anything about the previous films, they have an idea of some of the themes and images that await them: the eternal battle between the Dark Side and Light Side of the Force, with all the epic dog fights and light-saber duels that entails. Bad-guy Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) is a formidable figure, but if your kids are anything like my 6-year-old son, they not only know the “Star Wars” villains but also prefer them. We see actual Stormtrooper blood this time, which is new (but not much). There’s a massive, creepy figure overseeing spiritual control of all the bad guys here, who are now known as the First Order – that’s the only thing that even vaguely disturbed my son. And … well, that’s probably all I should say. I think this is fine for kids ages 5 or 6 and up, especially if they’re already steeped in Star Wars lore. You should especially bring your girls: Daisy Ridley’s Rey is a heroine for the ages, and an excellent role model of smarts and strength.

Rating: PG-13, for sequences of action and violence, and brief partial nudity.

Tom Cruise’s fifth Mission: Impossible movie was also one of the best action movies of the summer. This time, Cruise’s super spy, Ethan Hunt, is investigating a shadowy organization called the Syndicate – but no one else believes the Syndicate actually exists, so the United States government shuts down him and his agency. Naturally, Hunt gets his team back together to take down the Syndicate, which leads to lots of over-the-top action sequences. Older kids will probably like that the movie speeds along with hardly a breath between the chases and fights. But the story gets complicated and can be a bit hard to follow (although everything moves so fast, it doesn’t really matter). As expected, you’ll see a fair amount of gunfights here, with nameless henchmen serving as cannon fodder, and early on there’s a murder that’s pretty intense without being very gruesome.  The “brief partial nudity” mentioned in the ratings comes from a scene where co-star Rebecca Ferguson is briefly topless, but the camera only catches her from behind. And this being a Tom Cruise movie, you get the requisite helmet-free motorcycle chase. It should be fine for older kids and more mature pre-teens.