I rarely read reviews before we go to a movie. My criteria for taking the kids to the movies is (1) they are begging me to see it and (2) it’s not rated R or worse. With a PG-13 rating, The Dark Knight passed both those tests so we went. It wasn’t until after we saw the movie that I saw all the hype that the movie is too violent for children. And I was a little shocked. I didn’t think the movie was any more disturbing or gory than I expected it to be. It is a superhero movie after all. That means there will be fighting, things will blow up and people will die. And The Dark Knight? Check. Check. Check. Yep, it had all that.

Like a few other PG-13 movies, some kids will find The Dark Knight to be too scary for them. It does have a fantastic theme of dark vs. light (or good vs. evil) that may be a little disturbing to some kids. Heath Ledger played the role of The Joker to a tee. He was fantastically crazy and insane. And Two Face’s, well, face is a bit gross, but exactly what I would expect for Two Face. There was some blowing up and people did die, but there wasn’t any blood and guts. Well maybe blood, but you get my point. It wasn’t gory.

I’m not really sure what all the hype is about. I don’t think this movie is any different than say The Incredible Hulk or Spiderman I, II and III and I don’t remember this much debate about any of those movies. I’d say it’s your teen or older tween will be fine with it, but in the end you know your kids best. You know if this kind of movie will give your child nightmares or not. It’s not for every kid, but it’s no worse than other movies in it’s class.

Blisstree

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