98 Best PG Movies to Watch (Page 7)

It's not that being similar to another, successful, animated franchise is a bad thing, but The Tiger's Apprentice hurries to practically every plot point without properly establishing its setting, its characters, or their relationships. It all means well, and once you get used to its lower production values, it becomes clear that the film has a distinct visual personality that it makes pretty good use of—especially during its kinetic fight scenes. But too much of the movie ultimately feels like a blueprint that hasn't had the details filled in yet. It becomes difficult to feel anything when the film doesn't give you a chance to sit with any one moment (like, you know, the death of an important character) for too long.

Genre: Action, Adventure, Animation, Family, Fantasy

Actor: Bowen Yang, Brandon Soo Hoo, Deborah S. Craig, Diana Lee Inosanto, Greta Lee, Henry Golding, Jo Koy, Josh Zuckerman, Leah Lewis, Lucy Liu, Michelle Yeoh, Patrick Gallagher, Poppy Liu, Raman Hui, Ryan Christopher Lee, Sandra Oh, Sherry Cola, Tan Kheng Hua

Director: Raman Hui

Rating: PG

Even if Crimes of Fashion: Killer Clutch faithfully sticks to the general template of a mystery film, that doesn't guarantee its quality. It may have structure and suspects and motive but it doesn't inject its own color into the expected story beats. Maybe it's a consequence of the film being made for a network that only really shows "safe," sanitized programming, but there isn't a particularly strong sense of danger here despite the threat of violence being established from the very beginning. And while the movie has fun with individual outsized characters meant to show off how outlandish and how expressive high fashion can be, they fall to the background and are unfortunately diluted in the rest of the film's bland tropes.

Genre: Crime, Drama, Mystery, TV Movie

Actor: Alain Van Goethem, Brooke D'Orsay, David Bowles, Gilles Marini, Harry Szovik, Martin Budny, Mohamed Belhadjine, Paloma Coquant

Director: Felipe Rodriguez

Rating: PG

Even if it knows to keep its ambitions modest, Holiday in the Vineyards still doesn't find much to do for its small cast. The actors do what they can and certainly seem like they're having fun play-acting a warm Christmas romcom, but when all is said and done there simply isn't anything particularly striking about the collection of romcom-isms assembled for this movie. Even the film's premise—which seems to promise a unique clashing of values between a small town and big capitalist business—resolves things with little more than a pat on the back. It's certainly sweet on the surface, but these people we're asked to to spend 107 minutes with still feel like strangers to us by the end.

Genre: Drama, Romance

Actor: Alan Toy, Annika Noelle, Carlos Solórzano, Cullen Douglas, Eileen Davidson, Gregory Zarian, Josh Swickard, Kaleina Cordova, Manuel Rafael Lozano, Omar Gooding, Paul Witten, Sol Rodríguez

Director: Alex Ranarivelo

Rating: PG

The Spy Kids movies have always been knowingly corny, which hasn't changed for this latest installment—it's just that it also has an odd lack of color and personality to its generic action movie shenanigans. This is especially disappointing given the film's focus on video games, which it only seems to understand in their most surface level terms. And because there's a lack of definition in the movie's rules and logic, the plot progresses without any weight or sense of mounting excitement. These are just people going through the motions toward some unclear message about the value of honesty and kindness, which never really factor into the actual adventure and keep the status quo firmly unchanged.

Genre: Action, Action & Adventure, Adventure, Comedy, Family, Science Fiction

Actor: Billy Magnussen, Connor Esterson, D.J. Cotrona, Everly Carganilla, Gina Rodriguez, Jersey Johnston, Joe Schilling, Neal Kodinsky, Solar Dena Bennett, Zachary Levi

Director: Robert Rodriguez

Rating: PG

Given the nature of the subject (the discovery of a species that predates humans), this installment of the Unknown documentary movies has more fanfare than its predecessors. The narrative never transcends positing that a Homo Naledi is just like Homo Sapiens, but not really. The experts' enthusiasm is often unsettling when you quickly realize that no opposing view is mentioned. In other installments, the balance of arguments for and against discoveries made the narrative compelling. However, Cave of Bones is suspiciously wrapped in (and warped by) the need to have Homo Naledis feel different from humans. What is initially fascinating eventually lends itself to fatigue when discoveries and philosophized theories are repeatedly aggrandized. 

Genre: Documentary

Actor: Lee Berger

Director: Mark Mannucci

Rating: PG

If you’re looking at posters and stills of this film thinking, “I know exactly what will happen here,” you’re right. Whatever it is, you’re right. Mother of the Bride is the type of vacation-wedding movie that’s been done a thousand times better before. But a generic premise is one thing; it’s easy to forgive cliches when you’re doing it right and giving the audience something else to look forward to, be it hilarity or romance. Being generic and lazy, however, is a different and less forgivable thing. Brooke Shields is the only one who feels like she’s truly acting here as she physically and emotionally throws herself into a character who is, sadly, too thinly written to deserve this much effort. If you’re still wondering whether the movie’s worth playing for the sake of Mother’s Day, just know that you’re better off reading Hallmark cards—they’re way less sappy and require only half the effort to go through.

Genre: Comedy, Romance

Actor: Benjamin Bratt, Brooke Shields, Miranda Cosgrove, Rachael Harris, Sean Teale

Director: Mark Waters

Rating: PG

Though it tries to root itself in the relatable situation of comparing oneself to others amid the often forced positivity of the Christmas season, Best. Christmas. Ever!'s disparate parts are so carelessly thrown together that it's hard to take any of it seriously. Potential conflicts in the marriages of its two central couples are tonally incompatible with the film's corny humor and a Miracle on 34th Street-esque subplot about the adults' children trying to prove that Santa is real. This is a totally mixed stew of Christmas movie tropes without rhyme or reason, which would have had a chance to at least be campy if its actors weren't phoning it in either.

Genre: Comedy, Family

Actor: Abby Villasmil, Allan Groves, Brandy Norwood, Camille Cadarette, Chase Ramsey, Heather Graham, Janet Lo, Jason Biggs, Madison Skye Validum, Matt Cedeño, Paul Kiernan, Wyatt Hunt

Director: Mary Lambert

Rating: PG

Hallmark movies aren't automatically bad if they're cheesy and on the cheaper side; there are ways to make these characteristics work, of course. But these qualities definitely don't help if the story they're telling is uninteresting and if the actors in front of the camera couldn't be compelled to deliver convincing emotions if their lives depended on it. Watching Gilded Newport Mysteries: Murder at the Breakers kind of feels like watching people rehearse a family-produced parody of an Agatha Christie novel, or like visiting Westworld and seeing the robots play-act a fictional scenario. Every line over-explains everything that happens on screen, and the mystery elements just aren't coherent enough for them to lead to a satisfying conclusion or interesting statement about the characters and their world.

Genre: Drama, Mystery, TV Movie

Actor: Aisling Goodman, Alissa Skovbye, Amira Anderson, April Telek, Ava Telek, Cesare Scarpone, Danny Griffin, David Beairsto, Geoff Gustafson, Gillian Barber, James Drew Dean, John Prowse, Katherine Evans, Madeleine Kelders, Mark Humphrey, Nathan Witte, Sebastian Greaves

Director: Terry Ingram

Rating: PG