Common Sense Note
Parents should know the film concerns a corporation's illegal effort to build a restaurant on protected land. To stop a saboteur, the local corporate employee sets mousetraps and sends out trained attack dogs. The kids who are trying to stop the building also engage in illegal activities, such as setting loose alligators and cottonmouth snakes, deflating tires, spray-painting a police cruiser, organizing a town meeting under false pretenses, and tying up the villain in a closet. The company boss lies, cheats, and treats his girlfriend callously. Kids and adults use mildly obnoxious language ("dork," "sucks"). A chaste flirtation develops between the boy and girl protagonists.
Families can talk about what tactics might effectively stop corporate cheating. How does the film parallel the middle school bully with the corporate bully? How do Roy's lies to his parents lead to their distress and what lesson does he learn from the experience? They could also compare the movie to the book upon which it's based.
Common Sense Review
Reviewed By: Cynthia Fuchs
Sweet but clumsy, HOOT doesn't show much of the endangered burrowing owls that motivate the plot. Instead, it focuses on the three kids who come together to combat the corporate entity endangering the birds. One of the rebels, a wily nature-boy named only Mullet Fingers (Cody Linley), discovers the company's scheme and then sets to sabotaging the construction site, convincing his friends to help him.
Having gone truant from military school, Mullet Fingers solicits help in saving the owls from Roy (Logan Lerman), new to Coconut Cove, Florida and feeling alienated when he first spots Mullet Fingers running barefoot along his school bus route. "Every school is different," he says, as he observes the local pecking order, "But somehow, they're all the same."
When Roy tracks down the mysterious boy at a campsite, he also meets Mullet Fingers' stepsister, Beatrice the Bear (Brie Larson), so named because she's a tough, respected sports competitor and willing to beat up anyone who crosses her. Or, for that matter, her friends -- when the school bully Dana (Eric Phillips) starts picking on Roy, she steps in to defend him, leaving Dana stripped to his underwear and tied to a tree so her teammates can walk by and giggle at him.
As this bit of business suggests, the movie tends to sanction bad behavior when the intentions are righteous. The villains, on the other hand, are broadly drawn and uncomplicated: Curly (Tim Blake Nelson), assigned to protect the site where a new Pancake site is to be erected, is sneaky and generally miserable. His boss, Mr. Muckle (Clark Gregg), is almost hyperactive in his cruel conniving. No one's about to feel sorry for them when the kids make trouble, even to the point of leaving Muckle tied up and gagged -- so very Home Alone.
Produced by Jimmy Buffett (who provides a score and an appearance as the wise science teacher), the movie's good intentions are repeatedly undermined by awkward pacing and editing, such that storylines collide more than coincide. The least irritating adult in sight is also the least relevant: Officer Delinko (amiable Luke Wilson) tries to help the kids but gets himself in trouble with his boss when Mullet Fingers spray-paints his cruiser's windows during a stakeout. Still, it's Delinko, who appears to be slow-on-the-uptake, who sees the children's righteous cause before anyone else. And so he helps them achieve their ends: thwarted corruption and shut-down bulldozers.
Families who like this movie will also like other movies about kids bucking authority, such as Holes, Because of Winn-Dixie, and My Dog Skip (also featuring Luke Wilson). They might also prefer the book.
Rate It!
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Sexual ContentVery minor: cleavage shots as teenaged Beatrice wears bikini tops; bully appears in underwear. |
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ViolenceBully picks on boy repeatedly; face mashed into a window; dog bite leaves bloody wound; villain sprays owl holes with fire extinguisher in an effort to kill them; villain tied and gagged in a closet. |
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LanguageMildly obnoxious language ("screwing up," "psycho bully," "darn," "dork," "sucks," "jerk," "dang," "nitwit," "idiot"). |
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Social BehaviorThe kids who are trying to stop the building engage in illegal activities. |
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