The Kids Aint Alright!!!

 I’ll warn you this is going to be a rant, but before the inevitable vitriol starts seeping through my pores like some kind of venomous ichor let me take you back, back to 1993. A little film was released about Dinosaurs, you may have heard of it, Jurassic Park I believe it was called. At the time of its release I was 6 years old and well Dinosaurs were my life, I had books, toys, board games and mugs, so as you can imagine when I saw a review of the film on the long extinct show, Movies, Games and Videos (if any readers remember this show, 10 nostalgia points.!) I jumped for joy, it was a must see. Luckily the film was a PG so my mother and my auntie took me and my three cousins to go and see it at the local Odeon and so began my love of film. Seeing these larger than life creatures alive on screen simply blew me away and along with my cousins I stayed routed to my seat until the end credits rolled.

 Note that I said me and my cousins stayed routed to our seats until the credit sequence, the four of us were between the ages of 4 and 9 with only two adults to mind us, yet still we stayed firmly in our seats and at no point did we utter as much as a word. All of us knew this was a rare treat, an experience to be savoured and enjoyed and we were grateful for it. Nowadays this just does not seem to be the case; the spectacle of the Cinema seems to be completely lost on children. On more than one occasion now I have gone to see a film rated between PG-12A and I have had my experience utterly ruined by the following:

1. A screaming child
2. A group of screaming children
3. A child on a mobile phone
4. A child running around the screen
5. A child kicking my seat repeatedly
6. An unruly parent screaming at an unruly child
7. A mixture of all of the above

 Now I know what some of you may be thinking, if you don’t want to endure this kind of crap then don’t watch kids movies. To this I reply, well just because a film is PG-12A doesn’t mean it’s just for kids (hell Watership Down is a U rating and about bunnies and that shit is fucking harsh). The certificate is a reflection of the films content; Stanley Kubrick’s Spartacus for example is PG but a kid’s film it aint. But even then what if it was a kids film? Harry Potter for example started life as a book aimed squarely at children, yet the adult following is vast. The cold fact of the matter is that when all is said and done I have paid between £6 and £7 of my hard earned money to immerse myself in the cinema experience. Frankly it is hard to enjoy or immerse oneself if there is an unruly cretin of a four year old using the seat next you as a trampoline, wailing like a fucking banshee, as his mother snaffles her way through a pack of revels, completely oblivious to the anti Christ she has inflicted on the world.

So to all those cinemas out there I beg you, please make straight jackets and muzzles compulsory for under 15 screenings, either that or just hobble the children on entry.

Note: This rant was inspired by that little bastard that ruined my enjoyment of Transformers: Dark of the Moon…..If you are reading this, Santa is dead, Optimus Prime killed him.

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