A more clichéd, cloying, and predictable treacle fest than Parental Guidance, you will not find. That is, if you’re an adult. That’s why it’s a pretty good film for small children!
Billy Crystal plays washed-up minor league baseball radio announcer Artie Decker. We meet him while he’s announcing a Grizzlies vs. Sacramento River Cats game.
He’s clearly very good at his job, but according to the front office—he’s ancient. He’s not hip, he doesn’t have a Facebook account, doesn’t know what an “app” is, or how to “tweet.” He gets fired.
He sadly goes home, where his wife (Bette Midler) is hosting a pole-dancing workout, which, in a child’s movie, feels like some kind of gratuitous naughtiness. They get a call from their daughter about watching the grandkids, whom they rarely get to see. They pack in a hurry.
Meanwhile, in the fully automated house of their daughter Alice (Marisa Tomei), where you talk to the house and it talks back (and secretly records everything you do), said daughter has been busy raising the kids in the currently popular manner.
Everything is highly “PC.” There are no boundaries, there’s no saying “no,” no competition, and no spanking. The kids have to “use their words.” Basically the parents spoil their kids rotten.
The grandparents and grandkids are reintroduced, whereupon the youngest grandchild, Barker, immediately adds an “f” to grandpa Artie’s name.
Artie shows the middle son how to stand up to bullies, and haggles with princeling Barker over the price of bribery to keep him from tattling on grandpa’s various mishaps.
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