Hellobee

This post contains some light spoilers for the movie Wonder Park. It doesn’t give away the end–what it spoils happens very early in the film and is a major driving force behind the entire plot. I also think it’s important for a parent to know about before they take their kid to this movie.

As I’ve discussed here before, we are a movie family. Snowy is five now, and we have been watching family movies for over two years together (Moana was her first.) We have a cheap theater near our house with $3 matinee tickets, and it’s something I can do with her that is easy on my body.

Snowy often sees trailers and talks about movies she wants to see, but I can’t think of a movie she’s talked about as much of as Wonder Park. The trailers for the movie really drew her in: they feature mostly the colorful animal characters, voiced by talent like Mila Kunis, John Oliver, and Kenan Thompson.

I had no idea what to expect from this movie, which is the main reason I’m writing this review. The trailers for this movie are very misleading and don’t really portray much about the movie. All they really show is the animal characters and the colorful, fun amusement park: they gave no indication of what the movie would be about.

I’m in a group for Parents of Only Children on Facebook, and between that and the Common Sense media review, which I read after the movie, many parents were blindsided by a movie that was much heavier than they expected. While I ended up ultimately really enjoying the movie and so did Snowy, I would warn parents that it deals with heavy themes of parent illness and a parent’s uncertain fate, and that if your child is at all sensitive this may not be the right movie for them.

While the animal characters do play crucial and funny roles, at the very core of this story is a family and specifically the 8-year-old daughter, June. You quickly learn that the movie’s “wonder park,” a magical amusement park called Wonderland, is the creation of June and her mother. June is a smart, inventive leader who gives girls a strong role model (she does STEM! She’s an inventory!). She is supported by clearly loving, imaginative parents who help feed her desire to create.

But then the mom gets sick, and this is when the movie gets heavy, and it stays in this heavy, dark place for most of the rest of the movie, in which it is unsure if the mom will recover from whatever has caused her to go away for treatment.

The themes of the movie are very good. June is shown to learn how to persevere and follow the light and wonder inside of her, even during the darkest times. Snowy isn’t particularly sensitive, and she really liked the movie. She wasn’t scared by the darkness, loved the animals, and wanted to create her own “wonder park” when we got home, something we did the entire rest of the day (she made each of her stuffed animals one of the animal mascots.)

My consensus is that in general, my family really enjoyed this movie, but I definitely don’t think it’s for everyone.

And relatedly, I think every movie from now on should have a “sick/dying parent” warning. From the very beginning of the movie it was fairly obvious that one of the parents was going to get sick, and I was terrified that the mom was going to die. The fact that she didn’t made this a good movie, but I think if she would have it would have really destroyed me, as a chronically ill mom whose daughter is very aware of the fact she is sick. I was dreading that possible ending, and from now on am going to read reviews before I go into a movie I know nothing about.