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Parents' Guide to

Status Update

By Jeffrey Anderson, Common Sense Media Reviewer

age 13+

Routine teen comedy has stereotyping, drinking.

Movie PG-13 2018 106 minutes
Status Update Poster Image

A Lot or a Little?

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

Community Reviews

age 14+

Based on 4 parent reviews

age 17+
Do not think this is a cute kid movie. In the first part, 2 kids that just met sing a song blatantly about having sex, Bruno Mars can sing it well, but, it doesn’t belong in this still cold scene, locked out of Heaven, guess what heaven is? The Mom cusses when speaking to her son about someone. A girl’s Mother attempts , in a very cringy scene, to molest this seventeen year old boy in what someone thought would be a funny scene, but, for a minute, replace the characters with a seventeen year old girl and a friends father and it’s Attempted rape, not at all funny. So sexist. Please don’t let your kids think this is in any way acceptable behavior. Even my13 year old was surprised at the cardboard representation of the gay friend and his instant change. The only sort of decent character is the “fat” friendless friend, who comes off positive about himself and who he is. But, if you blink, your kid will miss that.
age 13+

I think this was a great, feel-good movie. Plot was easy to follow and entertaining. It never felt like it dropped the ball to me. I think many teens will connect to the story and main characters and send them off with a great message at the end of the day.

There was some violence, red solo cups, all felt humorous and intentionally made suitable for younger audiences. Definitely a PG-13 kind of movie imo.

This title has:

Great messages
Great role models

Is It Any Good?

Our review:
Parents say (4 ):
Kids say (12 ):

This teen comedy with a "be yourself" message is slickly artificial, grinding painfully through extremely well-worn plot mechanics and essentially failing to follow its own message. With its amped-up performances and overwritten characters (it's kind of like they're all attention-starved puppy dogs), Status Update instantly smacks of an after-school special or other low-budget fare. Moreover, the movie insists on having its characters look and sound like stereotypes: The main character has long, blonde "surfer-dude" hair; the nerdy best friend is overweight; and the gay character is a fashionista. Oh, and non-white characters exist only on the sidelines.

In fact, no one here resembles an actual human being that viewers might know or spend time with. The storyline has been done a million times before, and not much flair or cleverness has gone into updating it for the mobile age. Status Update runs through all the familiar twists with as little effort as possible, including all the old "be careful what you wish for" clichés. For example, when Kyle tries out for the hockey team, his magic post says that he "skated like a pro." So he proceeds to perform a figure-skating program in front of the team. (This is arguably the movie's best joke.) Perhaps the most difficult parts to get through, however, are the musical numbers. Too bad this movie can't be wished away.

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