Parental Guidance (2012)

◄ Parental Guidance (2012)

Metascore

Based on 18 critic reviews provided by

75	Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey Parental Guidance is an engaging comedy that bridges multiple generation gaps, making it that rare movie that grandparents, their kids, and their kids can enjoy.
60	New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman Crystal and Midler are such confident pros that their crack timing elevates even substandard material.
50	The Hollywood Reporter Michael Rechtshaffen Billy Crystal and Bette Midler hustle to peddle the threadbare material that makes Andy Fickman's comedy a perfectly tolerable, if uninspired, moviegoing experience.
50	The New York Times Manohla Dargis It could be worse, and would be without Bette Midler or Marisa Tomei.
50	Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman In the occasionally funny but mostly facile '80s-style culture-clash comedy Parental Guidance, Billy Crystal, who now resembles a very cute puffer fish, plays Artie Decker.
50	San Francisco Chronicle Peter Hartlaub Perhaps anticipating an older audience, most of the lessons are one-sided, with the old-timers seemingly harming the children while actually saving them.
50	Boston Globe Wesley Morris Parental Guidance is overly generous with regard to the silliness. However, it's not clueless. Crystal seems determined to give as generously as he gets. When a bully whacks him, Crystal covers the bully in vomit. Good for him.
40	Los Angeles Times Lazy, smugly self-satisfied movie.
38	USA Today Scott Bowles The movie spends too much time wedging the couple into a May-December moment, where Crystal cracks nostalgic about the good old days. It's sweet, but it grows old.
12	Washington Post Michael O'Sullivan It's hard to know who exactly Parental Guidance was made for.