Parents' Guide to

Expelled

By Sandie Angulo Chen, Common Sense Media Reviewer

age 12+

Star vehicle for young YouTube celebs has iffy messages.

Movie PG-13 2014 97 minutes
Expelled Poster Image

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Community Reviews

age 11+

Based on 11 parent reviews

age 2+

Cringy movie

It's at best a show you leave on for your child 9t baby to watch because it has bright colors and lots of talking, other than that this movie is horrible, plot horrible and the way the main protagonists try to add more to their character makes their acting even more terrible to watch. 0/10

This title has:

Too much consumerism
age 18+

Is It Any Good?

Our review:
Parents say (11):
Kids say (26):

Plot-wise, this is an obvious homage/theft of Ferris Bueller's Day Off: a cooler-than-thou teen uses technology to keep his parents from knowing he's ditching (or in this case expelled from) school. Just like in John Hughes' classic, someone pretends to be Felix's father, he has a stand-in mannequin in his bed, and he fools a principal intent on his demise. Chances are if your kid is an avid Dallas fan (and those chances are good -- the 20-year-old has millions of followers on Vine and YouTube), Expelled has been downloaded and streamed on a device in your home. If not, then there's really no reason to pay for it other than to see the handsome but not exactly talented young star strut around with a perpetual smirk.

Unlike Ferris' memorable young actors (Matthew Broderick, Alan Ruck, Jennifer Grey, Mia Sara), none of these young social media celebs (the movie also features Lia Marie Johnson, Marcus Johns, and Andrea Russett) has enough screen presence to carry a 90-minute movie (although apparently they DO have enough talent for bite-sized digital videos, some of which last just a few seconds). To make matters worse, the message isn't even an adolescent cry of "carpe diem!," but rather a troubling "isn't it easy to deceive and blackmail adults with our superior powers of technology?"

Movie Details

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