Parents' Guide: April 1993
Spring is springing, and many a young mind is preoccupied with getting out of the house. But if April showers water down your weekend plans, the movies might be your kid's ticket to terra incognita: a trip down the Mississippi (Huck Finn), a tour of Washington, D.C. (Born Yesterday), an outer-space outing (Fire in the Sky), or a voyage back in time (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III).
Movies
THE ADVENTURES OF HUCK FINN
*What It's About: Mark Twain's
masterpiece of picaresque Americana adapted faithfully to the screen;
there's much less doe-eyed Disneyization than you'd expect. *Will
Kids Want to Watch It? This Huck (Elijah Wood) is a bit too
precocious, but he still lives a life that most kids would envy
(i.e., no parental supervision). *MPAA: PG. *Sex/Nudity: None. *Drugs/Alcohol: Huck's Pap (Ron Perlman) gets disgustingly — and
dangerously — drunk; young Huck smokes a pipe. *Violence/Scariness: There's a hard-hitting fistfight between Huck and another boy; Pap
abducts Huck and hits two old ladies in the process; Pap tries to
kill Huck with a knife; Huck kills a wild boar and uses
its blood to fake his own death; Huck's raftmate, Jim (Courtney B.
Vance), a runaway slave, is whipped; Huck is wounded by a bullet; Jim
is almost hanged. *Profanities: Just ''hell's bells.'' *Mature Themes: Racial tolerance; also, Huck's constant lying tends to get him in
trouble.
BENNY & JOON
*What It's About: Benny, a hardworking brother
(Aidan Quinn) who cares for his mentally impaired sister, Joon (Mary
Stuart Masterson), and the bizarre, Chaplinesque Sam (Johnny Depp),
who changes their lives. *Will
Kids Want to Watch It? The physical
shtick by Depp will delight young kids, but most of the verbal
humor will be lost on them. Also, the film moves slowly, and once it
takes its final heavy turn, kids will turn off. *MPAA: PG. *Sex/Nudity: Sam and Joon evidently make love (it's not clear, and in any
event, nothing is shown). *Drugs/Alcohol: Several shots of Benny
drinking a beer. *Violence/Scariness: Joon smashes a lamp in anger;
a flashback to dead parents after a car crash; (funny) horror-movie
scene with a knife and blood; Sam falls from a building and breaks
his foot. *Profanities: Six. *Mature Themes: It's hard enough living
your own life without having to make someone else's decisions for
them.
BORN YESTERDAY
*What It's About: Oddly retro remake of the very
'50s film about a shady businessman (John Goodman) who comes to
Washington, D.C., to make a deal with some senators but finds he has
to get his unworldly girlfriend (Melanie Griffith) smartened up
first. *Will
Kids Want to Watch It? Make sure they know it's not
about a talking 1-day-old baby; this is fairly adult-oriented
political satire, despite the PG rating. *MPAA: PG. *Sex/Nudity: Just cleavage. *Drugs/Alcohol: Several scenes involving drinking. *Violence/Scariness: The verbally abusive Goodman slaps Griffith
twice; Goodman tries to choke Don Johnson. *Profanities: Four. *Mature Themes: Reading a book or a newspaper isn't such a bad thing;
it's wrong to treat a person like a possession.
FIRE IN THE SKY
*What It's About: Another close encounter of the
E.T. kind, only these guys aren't so friendly. Based on the real-life
story of Travis Walton (D.B. Sweeney), who says he was abducted by
aliens in 1975. *Will
Kids Want to Watch It? There's too little alien
action for young attention spans. The film concentrates on Travis'
friends, who,until he reappears, are suspected of murdering him. *MPAA: PG-13.
*Sex/Nudity: Aliens strip Travis of his clothes; a post-abduction
Travis is found naked. *Drugs/Alcohol: Some beer drinking. *Violence/Scariness: Travis is knocked unconscious by an alien beam;
he finds a rotting corpse aboard the UFO and later kicks an alien in
the face; aliens cover him with a suffocating material; they stick a
probe in his neck and a needle in his eye. *Profanities: About 16. *Mature Themes: Sticking to one's convictions in the face
of overwhelming doubt.
TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES III
*What It's About: Leonardo,
Raphael, Donatello, and Michaelangelo travel in history to
17th-century Japan, where they fight some wimpy bad guys. *Will
Kids Want to Watch It? These fantastic four are still hot even if
this film isn't. Kids may not like it as much as the first two, but
they'll act as if they do. *MPAA: PG. *Sex/Nudity: They never remove
their shells. *Drugs/Alcohol: None. *Violence/Scariness: The guys
find themselves in the middle of a warlord battle; the turtles knock
out a total of 62 bad guys; a village is set on fire; a boy is
rescued from a burning hut; a bad guy plunges to his death in stormy
waters. *Profanities: Hardly even a ''Cowabunga!'' *Mature Themes: Raphael gives an antiviolence lecture to a young kid, which is like a
scorpion preaching against stinging.
