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Parents' Guide to

Luke and Lucy: The Texas Rangers

By Tracy Moore, Common Sense Media Reviewer

age 12+

Wild West shoot-'em-up with drinking and a suggestive scene.

Movie PG 2011 88 minutes
Luke and Lucy: The Texas Rangers Poster Image

A Lot or a Little?

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

Community Reviews

age 6+

Based on 3 parent reviews

age 2+

This is not a 1996 2 hour long movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio

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1 person found this helpful.
age 7+

Tedious Madagascar rip-off with some crude humor.

Positive Messages :A father tells his son that there are times that sometimes it's better to set free something that you love, in this case, a pet dog into the jungles of Africa. Violence & Scariness: Cartoonish violence. A dog falls out of a jeep during a safari and lands on his head. Crocodiles snap at the dog as he climbs across a narrow branch over water. A herd of rhinoceroses destroy a village. They throw around bamboo buildings, and one rhino goes as far as to urinate (standing up) on one of the bamboo walls. Drinking: The animals throw a party and drink out of mugs with cocktail umbrellas and martini glasses. A crocodile is told that he needs to drink a "frosty beverage." Parents need to know that Luke And Lucy: The Texas Rangers is a crude and unwatchable rip-off of the DreamWorks film Madagascar. None of the characters are especially likeable and some fall into stereotype territory. In one scene two hyenas pull a prank on a sleeping dog by putting excrement in the dog's paw then tickling his nose so the dog smacks his face with the excrement. There are also shots of this same dog sitting on a toilet, as well as the dog burping to raucous applause from the animals around him. The Story: Pip is a blue-blooded dog from Cambridge, Massachusetts who has accompanied his owners, Texas rangers Luke And Lucy on an African safari. When a bump in the road throws him out of the jeep, Pip is lost in the jungle. He meets two hyenas who mock his dandified "big city" ways, but gains acceptance among the jungle's denizens when he figures out a way to get water out of the river via irrigation pipes made out of bamboo, keeping them safe from rhinos and crocodiles. A party ensues, but when the rhinos see the pipes, they are enraged and attack the huts that have emerged around the water vats. It is up to Pip to try and make peace with the rhinos, so he meets a herd of female rhinos, and plays matchmaker in the hopes that love will bring peace to the jungle. Meanwhile, Pip awaits the return of Luke And Lucy, who are desperately trying to find him. Is It Any Good: LUKE AND LUCY: THE TEXAS RANGERS is an incredibly boring rip-off of the DreamWorks film Madagascar. Even if the computer animation was decent (which it isn't), there are no likeable characters, the action is at least twice as long as necessary, and the attempts at humor fall flat. Furthermore, in the midst of the tedium, parents watching this will be subjected to computer animated excrement placed onto the paw of a dog by hyenas who tickle the dog's nose so said dog slaps the excrement in his face. Couple this with utterly bizarre jokes involving flatulence and poop, and you have many reasons to avoid this movie. Talk to Your Kids About ... Families can talk about bad movies. What makes a movie "bad" as opposed to good? Did you notice any stereotypes in this movie? Why do you think filmmakers choose to use stereotypes for characters? Are they funny? Were there any likeable characters in this movie? What happens to a movie when no one is likeable? Movie Details: On DVD or streaming: June 12, 2012 Cast: Jeffrey Lee Hollis, Melissa Lattari, Robert D. Hanna Director: Robert D. Hanna Studio: Phase 4 Films Genre: Action/Adventure Topics: Adventures, Wild Animals Run time: 100 minutes MPAA rating: PG MPAA explanation: some mild rude humor Last updated: March 31, 2022

Is It Any Good?

Our review:
Parents say (3 ):
Kids say (6 ):

Luke and Lucy: Texas Rangers has its moments in offbeat laughs and silly antics. But those OK-for-a-7-year-old moments in this animated film are marred by some inexplicable adult references, sustained gunslinging, and more than one off-color stereotype than doesn't make sense for a movie featuring kids as its main action heroes. Though it's tough to guess how old Luke and Lucy are -- they play video games, but Lucy still carries a doll -- it's offputting to watch them show their way around an interrogation room so naturally, fish a gun out of a bad guy's back pocket and turn it on him, or visit a seedy bar with a neon pink sign for a sex club called Eros blinking outside in the background. But when they all waltz into a bar to watch a voluptous lady coo a two-minute tune about what a bad girl she is, figurng out what movie you're trapped in gets genuinely confusing. This may make sense if your kids are familiar with the Belgian Spike and Suzy comic books, upon which this movie is based, but their debut in 1945 makes that unlikely.

For older kids, the shoot-em-up western action and steampunky cowboy robot Jim Parasite make for an entertaining video game come to life, and parents may enjoy the jokes and brief bullet-dodging Matrix moment. The cowboys are fun and the shrink-your-way-to-world-domination is a clever thread. And while explaining the Mexican stereotype and all the machismo might make for an educational moment, if you're looking for an all-ages adventure without all the baggage, keep looking.

Movie Details

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