But why take a 5 year old to the cinema who can’t seem to sit still for more than 10 minutes and expect him to sit and behave for over 2 and a half hours?

Finally got round to seeing Dark Knight Rises with the wife, which seems a little violent for young children. The place is almost empty, the family sits right in front of us and as soon as the film starts their little miracle starts pissing about only to be told “sit down sweety” to which he promptly ignores.

It’s raining, i get it, you want to keep them entertained while you sleep off your Pinot Grigio hangover, and I don’t have kids so I could never understand, but next time I’m going to wait until the film starts, I’m going to phone my mate and chat to him for two hours loudly while you’re trying to concentrate on the film you overpayed for!!!!

I’m a parent and I don’t understand either.

We didn;t take our kids to the cinema unless they coudl a) sit still for the length of the film and b) actually wanted to watch it.

There was the incident where I fell asleep during Elmo’s Big Adventure with my 3 year old son on my lap and dropped him onto his head but he was relatively quiet waking me up and complaining.

The place is almost empty, the family sits right in front of us

Were you bolted to your seats? There seems to be a fairly obvious solution here.

which seems a little violent for young children.

It’s a 12A isn’t it. Hardly the place for a 5yo.

I’m a parent and I don’t understand either.

Plane journeys I can understand, but cinema seats is plain selfish.

Odd film to take a 5 year old to and what Cougar said.

The parents could at least have made sure the wean was drugged up a bit first 🙄

I’m a parent and I don’t understand either. My daughter is 5 and we ahve never taken her to a full length film yet.
FWIW I would have moved as well 😀

Both my daughters went to pics for the first time aged 4, the eldest being the model child she is and a little film buff never budged. The youngest had to be told once to sit still or she’d be taken out and put in the car. However it was Toy Story 3 so it was full of wriggly screaming kids and aisle runners, she was just a bit wriggly.

I’m a parent of 2 boys (8 and 6) – they’ve been to the cinema for years but only to films that are appropriate for them and that they’ll actually be interested in – eg Pixar films like Toy Story 3, UP etc.

A 12A Batman film fulfils neither criteria – sounds like the rest of the family wanted to see it and haven’t got anyone to look after the 5 yr old so took them anyway.

Not a film I’d have taken my kids to, the first films they saw were Piglet’s Great Adventure (or something similarly awful), which was packed full of 3/4/5 yr olds wriggling, talking and screaming etc. TBH the screaming was probably better than the film itself 🙄

I’d have told them to shut up.

As an aside (because I can see everyone’s going to basically agree here so it’ll get boring pretty soon) but there was this one time, at band camp, I was in Dublin on Easter weekend and we decided to go and see The Passion of the Christ on Good Friday.

About six girls all roughly in their early 20s, all roughly very rough, encamped themselves with more bags of sweets, crisps, chocolates and fizzy pop than school tuck shop.

Right at the point where Christ was being flayed, with bits of flesh being ripped out all over the place and gore and viscera pooling on the floor, these lot were chomping through crisps and slurping their pop.

🙄

Catholics like a bit of evisceration with their high sugar snacks, clearly.

I took my 2.5year old to see brassed off at the theatre – 3hrs long, she sat for 2hrs and 50 mins, the last ten was too exciting with the brass band playing that she stood on my knee and clapped. The old cow behind complained at the interval as she needed (once) to get up in the first half for a wee!!

You sat all the way through The Passion of Christ?

Bravo!

Look up dyspraxia adhd and add

It’s a 12A isn’t it. Hardly the place for a 5yo

Exactly what I thought. I noticed a couple of scenes that had been cut a little to lessen the violence but even I was wincing at a lot of it. I know it’s Batman, but it’s moved on a bit from the colourful comic book stuff. At least it appears Dredd will be an 18.

Look up dyspraxia adhd and add

Don’t have to, but then surely if the kid had either taking him to see Dark Knight Rises wouldn’t really have helped anyone including the parents…….or is that the Mumsnet Defense (i’m trademarking that)

I’m a parent and I don’t understand either…

… why anyone would take a 5yo to that film.
Ours went to the cinema at 5 but to films that they’d sit through at screenings full of kids.

Bit surprised at the age of some of the children people were bringing into the Bourne Legacy at the weekend. To be fair they didn’t act up that I noticed, but seemed like an odd thing to take them to.

sounds like the rest of the family wanted to see it and haven’t got anyone to look after the 5 yr old so took them anyway.

I expect that’s it, but when you decide to have kids that’s one of the things you have to put up with isn’t it?

Most kids figgit especially when board, this far from means they have ADHD.

Yup having kids means you have to give some things up if you can’t get childcare, I used to go almost weekly to the cinema. I even use to ride bikes.

But why take a 5 year old to the cinema

A few possibilities:

a) because you want to see the film and have no babysitter
b) because the kid badgered you to take you, promised you that s/he’d sit through it like a good girl/boy, then turned out not to be able to
c) cos you thought they’d like it but made a mistake.

Note I am in no way condoning the actions described in the OP.

On the bright side, that kid will grow up telling his mates that the first film he saw at the cinema was Batman Returns. How cool is that?!

On the bright side, that kid will grow up telling his mates that the first film he saw at the cinema was Batman Returns. How cool is that?!

See? They don’t pay attention anyway 😉

On the bright side, that kid will grow up telling his mates that the first film he saw at the cinema was Batman Returns. How cool is that?!

He’s a time travelling kid? Coooooool!

Whats the legal position taking a 5 year old into a 12A – or allowing a 5 year old into a 12A, from the cinemas perspective? Are the ratings advisory or enforcable?

Me and MrsMCTD are child free tonight, off to see the first 15 rated film we’ve watched in years……

12A means under 12s have to be accompanied by an adult, it’s a cinema-only certification.

“12” on its own isn’t a cinema classification, it’s for home video and legally restricts the sale / hire of movies to those under age.

The other age limits (15, 18) are mandatory age restrictions.

Whilst I totally agree with the OPs opinion in that the film was probably totally inappropriate for a 5 year old. I can’t understand why the OP didn’t move or bring their complaint to the cinemas staff.

Bottling stuff like this up, letting it eat away at you until you have to vent it off here is a sure fire way to a shortened lifespan.

We had this one in a nearly full cinema, only the kids were older (10-12 IIRC) and sat. Behind us. I asked them once to be quiet, polite but stern. After a few miniutes it was back to square one, so I spotters few empty seats, stood up, turned round, and said “thanks for ruining the film, can I have my money back please?”

To be fair it’s just not the young kids who are a pain in the arse I’ve had 3 confrontations in the cinema over the past 12 months all of them with teenagers to be honest.

1 x kicking my and my mrs chairs from behind constantly
1 x talking / making lots of noise I let them yap all the way through the trailers but within 5 mins of the main feature I had to say something.
1 x mobile phone going off and yapping on it.

They all seem very supprised when you turn round stand up and tell them in the nicest possible way to either stop kicking the chair or shut the **** up!

The chair kickers actually left and my mrs was expecting security to tell me to leave after I explained nicly what I was going to do if they didn’t stop 🙂