Parental Guidance

When you're waiting for a film that has an actor with such great delivery and comic timing as with Billy Crystal, and it just comes in a little short, it's kind of disillusioning. Well, with "Parental Guidance", this is really what happened.

Old school grandfather Artie Decker (Billy Crystal), who is accustomed to calling the shots, meets his match when he and his eager-to-please wife Diane (Bette Midler) agree to babysit their three grandkids when their type-A parents Alice and Phil Simmons (Marisa Tomei and Tom Everett Scott) have to go away on a work-related trip. Not that Alice wants them to babysit, it's just that they couldn't get anyone else with such short notice.
The fact that these kids haven't had much contact with these set of grandparents makes the visit that much more challenging. So when the 21st century problems collide with Artie and Diane's old school methods of tough rules, lots of love, and old-fashioned games, it then becomes learning to bend--and not holding to your ground--that binds a family together.

Others to round out the cast are Bailee Madison, Joshua Rush, and Kyle Harrison Breitkopf as Harper, Turner, and Barker Simmons--the grandkids, respectively, Gedde Watanabe as Mr. Cheng, and Tony Hawk as himself.

This was effectively directed by Andy Fickman ("She's the Man" '06, "The Game Plan" '07, "Race to Witch Mountain" '09, "Wright vs. Wrong" (TV movie) '10, "You Again" '10). This guy certainly knows his territory and he sticks to it, and this can be good, but sometimes one must gamble and branch out a little to prove what you can do. He's careful and one can't knock him for that. Where this was familiar territory for the director, the writers were even more 'careful' than Fickman. I think where writers Lisa Addario and Joe Syracuse came in short was that it would have been funnier to let Crystal and Midler cut loose a bit more than they did-- the lines seemed planned out too much without enough spontaneity.

To say this film is not good would not do it justice--it's a good film, just not a great one. Besides watching the comic talents of Crystal and Midler, this movie speaks so much more about family dysfunction and possible ways it overcome it if they just treat each other the way they'd like to be treated. Ah-h, the golden rule strikes again.

Out of 4 stars: 3                   Rated: PG                        104mins.