The trailers advertising "Parental Guidance" (hereafter PG) were not only unpromising, but borderline appalling. It emphasized the tired, painful slapstick and saccharine sentiment of so many other formulaic family comedies, that I was determined to avoid it. But, visiting my mother and deciding to take in a movie before lunch at Bugaboo Creek Steakhouse, we decided upon PG because it was the only movie that had subject matter my Mom (not particularly keen on hobbits, 40-somethings, or even Lincoln) was interested in. After seeing it, we were pleasantly (if surprisingly) entertained, despite the dilapidated old "Clash of the Generations" plot. Our amusement was largely due to those reliably schticky comedy workhorses Billy Crystal and Bette Midler.
Crystal and Midler play fairly (but not completely) old-fashioned Artie and Diane Decker, parents to Type-A, harried upper-class daughter Alice Decker Simmons (Marisa Tomei). Alice is married to Phil Simmons (Tom Everett Scott) a basically easygoing engineer who, like Rick Moranis's Wayne Szalinski in the "Honey, I.." movies has converted their home into a technological, computerized, self-sustaining "house of tomorrow". Their children are Harper (Bailee Madison), who is as neurotically driven as her mother, Turner (Joshua Rush) her more levelheaded, technologically savvy brother who has a stuttering problem, and certainly not least, the mischievous, irreverent, red-haired Barker (Kyle Harrison Breitkopf) whose best friend is an invisible kangaroo named Carl (not Harvey).
Unlike the paternal grandparents, Artie and Diane have not seen their grandchildren in months, if not years. They are "the other grandparents".
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