I loved this movie! It had a very positive message about Moms and how important they are to a child's life. There may be a few scary moments (when the mom is abducted or when one of the moms dies - the latter isn't really shown and is only suggested) that might be upsetting to a younger child, and some violence, but my kids loved it and we thought it was really entertaining. I even got teary at one point!

Quite scary - my 7 year boy sees lots of movies - but this had too many near death scenes and was disturbing. One of the main characters was not able to save his mom. The messages were confusing and unclear. The moms that had well behaved kids and were stricter moms were the ones that could get abducted and killed by the Martians. So the message almost becomes don't behave too well or your mom could be abducted and killed. Also, there were male martians that behaved like unintelligent, fun-loving, crazy creatures that were not part of the orderly female run martian culture, they were not valued as bright or effective enough to raise the "hatchlings" along with the females. The male martians were ostracized from the society and lived together in the garbage dump. Very strange message that seemed to minimize the value of men & boys. The movie also had non-stop stressful moments - which was frightening for my son (who has actually seen parts of many live action movies such as "Lord of the Rings", "Star Wars", etc.). There was no down time for the child viewer - very few funny moments. Usually the reviews from Common Sense Media are right on - but this movie was not suitable for my family. This was an intense, stressful movie for my son with a very stressful subject matter (the idea of losing one's mom).

This is the most disturbing kids' movie I've ever seen. I did not enjoy this movie at all. Most disturbing was when Gribble was remembering how his mom had been killed by the aliens. This was shown through a series of flashbacks. Gribble was a kid and unable to save her. The message of the movie was good, but the content leading to it was very heavy.

Hated it. Messages were unclear, male Martians were portrayed as the huggers', they were stupid, partied, and relegated to the dump. Moms were too strict or...??? And the robots that were created to raise Martian children were shown as spanking the baby Martians. It was great 3-D, but an unbelievably bad movie for 7-8 year olds. My grandson thought the movie was a 'tear-jerker'. (My daughter also read the CSM 7+, without reading further.) I was so surprised that Joan Cusack agreed to portray motherhood in such a way. Maybe the editors deleted the message that mothers make rules that benefit the child and society...I don't know, it was a mess. My husband and I were groaning out loud. Role models were poor, I don't see how a 7 year old could learn that mothers are good from this movie! And our grandson has seen many movies that WE think weren't age appropriate. This one was one of the worst. We went to the 7pm show on the day after it opened, and the theatre was almost empty, we changed seats to try to accomodate the 3-D, and weren't disturbing a soul...there was no one else there!

I took my 5 year old boy, and my eight year old girl and her friend. They all thought is was super. I enjoyed it also.

The computer animation was great. Part of the time I forgot I was watching animation. It was interesting to watch my son's reactions to different scences of the movies and discuss what his feelings and thoughts were afterward. I even heard him say how mean the mom was at the beginning of the movie when she made her son turn off his movie and go to bed because he lied and fed his broccoli to the cat instead of eating it himself. (BTW - the broccoli had made the cat sick - how Mom found out.) The movie is not really violent, but there are some scenes which involve laser guns, and when the Mom appears dead (I cried - it can be intense). There are also some wonderful messages in the movie and a few unlikely heroes. I do not believe I have ever seen my son on the edge of his seat like at this show.

(Spoiler alert) I thought the movie was fine, but only because I was able to prep my 5 year old son before hand that the mom doesn't die and it's all make believe. He did still worry that she was going to die during movie but a quick reminder that she will be OK and he was fine with seeing it through. Other then that, he and I thought the movie was cute, funny, exciting, and fun to watch. Had I believed the trailer I would have through it was all fun and games without the implications of death. Thank you to all the other reviewers and to common sense media for the advance review.

I'm torn on this movie. The messages that children need families & the importance of love in our lives were great. But the scene where Gribble remembers his mother's death was really hard to watch.

My seven year has always been sensitive about movie and t.v. content and she was overwhelmed by this movie. Specifically the idea of having a mother stolen out of her bedroom at night and then being used for her maternal memory bank was too much. Especially the part in which "Gripple" retells his eye-witness experience of losing his own mother. My 4 year old was basically unaffected by the movie and said, "It wasn't even true!" But if you have a kid who is sensitive to loss, be careful.