Ah, yes. A G-Rated movie. The no-look pass for a parent. You can’t wrong with a G-Rated movie can you?
That’s what I thought, too, until I spent two hours dealing with death and indecisive female heroine characters during a full family outing to see Mr. Magorium’s (Morbid Death Experience) Wonder Emporium.
I’m not going to review the movie for you necessarily, suffice it to say it’s not about a magical toy store like the commercials would have you believe. It’s not another Willy Wonka feel good flick either.
Instead, 15 minutes into the movie you find out Mr. Magorium is going to die and wants to leave his store to Natalie Portman’s totally indecisive, insecure character.
I wrestled with this complaint before filing it. I didn’t know if I should make my biggest complaint about Mr. Magorium the fact that it is a death story in a G-Rated movie or whether I should complain about the lack of take charge decision making women in important movie roles. I’m going with the whole “exposing your little kids to death at an early age in the context of a movie about a toy store” angle because I’m sure another movie with a weak heroine who can’t pull it together to decide what to have for lunch will come along pretty soon.
If you haven’t seen this with your kids - don’t. And do not ever consider buying this movie for your kids on DVD unless you know what it’s about and you feel comfortable with increasing your chances of having a kid who wears black trench coats and eye makeup.
Knowing what a movie is about before you let your kids watch it is a lost art as far as parenting is concerned. I make a serious effort to know what a movie is about if I’m going to let them watch it. That is - unless the movie is rated G.
If they’re going to rate a movie G, it shouldn’t pose questions in the mind of a child like “What is the meaning of life?” or “What does ‘fixation on death’ mean?”. That’s what you’re looking at with this one.
If I wasn’t raging mad at the whole concept of exposing my kids to a “death comes to us all” G-Rated movie, I would have probably shed a few tears myself when Mr. Magorium magically kicks the can and his whole toy store self-shrouds itself in black. I probably would have cried if I wasn’t thinking “This mother f-ing movie is about this? Oh man, I’m gonna love posting this complaint…”
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Every G rated Disney cartoon has death or divorce…Bambi to Toy Story…
I think you took the movie a little too seriously… I highly doubt that any child who sees this movie will end up with thick eye make up and depressed. I thought it was a fun movie and although the female character was weak at the start of the movie she found herself in the end. I believe the death in Bambi was more violent and scary than this….and that says alot. It was laid out very simple…it was just his time to go…and I think children can understand that and should learn that.
arntigr8t on April 10th, 2008 at 11:34 am | Link
personally, I don’t see anything wrong with this movie.
It is actually very good to expose your kids to this in my opinion. Think about how many children are so young and have already lost parents. Wouldn’t Mr. Magorium sort of help them perceive what has happened? Everybody dies. Everybody needs to realize that, so why not hide the theme is a movie that is so magical that little kids can dwell on it without dwelling on the morbidness of death.
And the whole “insecure mahoney” thing….I don’t get it. The movie is about chasing your dreams and finding who you are and how you can help others be who they want to be.
If a movie didn’t have some ‘problems’ then you wouldn’t have a story.
stacie on September 24th, 2008 at 6:34 pm | Link