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The Kings of Summer | 2013 | R | - 4.4.6
Three teenage boys run away from home and spend their summer living in the woods and learn to fend for themselves. With Nick Robinson, Gabriel Basso, Moises Arias, Nick Offerman and Megan Mullally. Directed by Jordan Vogt-Roberts. [1:33]
SEX/NUDITY 4 - We see a man and a woman kissing passionately in a creek (the woman is shown wearing a bra and shorts and the man is shirtless) until a teen boy floating past on an inner tube interrupts them. A teen girl and a teen boy kiss passionately and then the boy pulls away; the girl kisses him again. A young man kisses a teen girl as a teen boy watches in disgust. A teen boy imagines himself about to kiss a teen girl and is interrupted as their lips are about to meet. A teen girl hugs a teen boy.
► A teen girl flirts with a teen boy and leans into him. A teen girl flirtatiously bumps into a teen boy.
► A man crudely jokes that he will never achieve an erection after a young man (the man's daughter's boyfriend) sings to him.
► We see a teen boy in the shower and a portion of his bare chest is visible; the boy's father pounds on the door and makes a crude remark about masturbation and the boy leaves the bathroom (implied to be fully nude and we see his bare chest and back); the man makes a remark about the boy's backside and tells him to bring clothing with him to the shower. Several teen boys walk past another teen boy, pulling his shirt over his head and he is seen shirtless. We see two teen boys shirtless throughout the movie. Three teen boys jump into a creek; one is wearing boxer-brief style underwear and the three of them are shirtless. Several teen boys and two teen girls swim in a creek; the teen boys are shirtless, wearing shorts and the teen girls are wearing bikinis. A teen boy walks around with his pants partially unzipped (no nudity is visible; we do see a portion of his boxer-style underwear). A teen boy tucks papers into the front of his pants.
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VIOLENCE/GORE 4 - We see a snake come close to a teen boy; the boy's heart races and we see him calm the snake down and later see the snake resting its head on the boy's leg until the boy is awoken when his father and a teen girl come crashing through the door causing the snake to slither next to the girl's feet; the boy jumps in front of the girl, preventing her from being bitten and another teen boy runs into the room holding a machete over his head to kill the snake; the snake bites the teen boy, he immediately vomits (we see the vomit leave his mouth) and passes out, hitting the ground; the man grabs the teen boy and carries him quickly through the woods and we later see the boy wake up in a hospital and hooked up to oxygen and an IV (he appears to be recovering); the teen girl thanks the teen boy and he remarks that he had "saved her blood from being rapidly oxygenated."
► A teen boy lunges at a rabbit on a trap and we hear a squishing noise as the teen boy lowers a large sword; we then see the boy butchering the rabbit, cutting along it's torso and slowly peeling off its skin and fur and he then lifts up the dead rabbit and we see bloody guts covering a table; the boy roasts the rabbit and is seen eating it.
► An older man shouts at a large group of teenagers partying and shoots a pistol into the air causing the teens to scatter.
► A teen girl imagines herself blowing up a truck a young man was standing next to (we see the truck and young man go up in a fireball). A teen boy imagines himself in a standoff with his father; the boy's father swings around knives in his hand and runs towards the boy, and he gets out of the way, allowing the man to run off a cliff and become a bunch of pixels (like a videogame).
► A teen boy jumps out of a second-floor window and he lands with a thud (he is unharmed). A teen boy holds a water pistol in his mouth and pantomimes shooting himself in the head. Three teen boys throw cans of soda and watermelons into the air and chop through them in slow-motion with swords. Two teen boys scream after they discover an opossum in a trap they had set; they run away. Two teen boys scream in fear when they discover a teen boy sitting in a house in the dark.
► Two teen boys shout at one another; one boy shoves the other boy on the chest repeatedly, then picks up a chair, throws it through the wall, storms away and then knocks over a mailbox. A teen boy stomps on another teen boy's foot. A teen boy pokes another teen boy in the face with a stick, he wakes up and swats away the stick angrily. A teen boy angrily throws hammers at the wall of a playhouse.
► A teen boy steals money from his father's pocket. A nurse bumps a wheelchair, holding an obviously ill older man, against a closing elevator door. A young woman playfully slaps her teenage brother. A group of teen boys playfully wrestle/jump on each other and they playfully throw dirt at each other.
► A man shouts at his teenage son who is implied to be on the phone calling the police; we see two police officers respond to a house after a teen boy calls the police while playing a board game with his family; the police warn the teen boy's father to not allow him to continue to call the police. A man shouts at his teenage son. A man shouts at another man; a young woman (the shouting man's daughter) tries to stop the shouting, but then angrily shouts at the other man and slams the door in the man's face.
► A man warns a husband and wife, whose son was missing, that they should worry -- implying he also had a son that went missing and had died. A teen boy tells another teen boy that his parents are "giving him hives" and when he pulls up his shirt we see hives on his torso; we later see the boy with more concentrated hives covering his entire torso. A woman warns her teenage son that Jim Henson died from an infected wound. A man tells another man that the man's son had caused his son to participate in a series of hijinks, including tying a turtle to a balloon and releasing it into the sky; the man remarks that the turtle then died. A teen boy brings up the death of his mother to his father and the man disregards the reference. A teen boy shows another teen boy a series of notes with cutout letters saying that a person had kidnapped the teen boys, telling the other boy that they could send the letters to their parents; the teen boy rejects his idea. A teen girl half-jokingly asks a teen boy if he had been shot in the woods the previous night. A man poses a hypothetical question to another man, asking if the man enjoys having someone urinate in his face; the man answers jokingly that the man might enjoy having someone urinate in his face.
► A teen boy takes a drink of creek water and immediately spits it out. A teen boy drinks from a pond and we later see the teen boy gagging. A teen boy spits water at another teen boy, he laughs and three other teen boys begin to play with water, throwing water at each other.
► We see a grasshopper on top of a dead beetle. We see a feather pierced through the thorax of a dead beetle. We see three teen boys urinating off a bridge (we see their backs and no nudity is visible) and three streams of urine in front of them.
► We see a man catch a fish as he and another man fish, and he then releases the fish back into the water.
LANGUAGE 6 - About 14 F-words and its derivatives, 3 obscene hand gestures, 2 sexual reference, 23 scatological terms, 6 anatomical terms (1 mild), 16 mild obscenities, 3 derogatory racial terms, name-calling (stupid, Zodiac Killer, gibberish of an undisciplined animal, spider woman you found in a gutter, floozy, fear-mongering Chinaman, racist, little [scatological term deleted], lame, old lonely [anatomical term deleted], savagely racist, fatty, insane, land grunt, harlequin, hypocrisy, [anatomical term deleted] head, like a cancer, Mary J. Blige, freak, idiot), 11 religious profanities, 18 religious exclamations.
SUBSTANCE USE - We see a group of teenage boys and teenage girls drinking beer, two teen boys are seen drinking beer on multiple occasions, we see large party were many teens are shown drinking what is implied to be beer out of Solo cups, a young man is seen drinking beer directly from a keg at a party, a teen girl is obviously intoxicated at a party, and we see two men drinking beer. A teen boy smokes a cigar, two teen boys hold cigars and run lighters over them, and a man is seen holding a cigar.
DISCUSSION TOPICS - Running away from home, growing up, death of a parent, overprotective parenting, grief, disappointment, young love.
MESSAGE - Friendship is very important.
CAVEATS
Be aware that while we do our best to avoid spoilers it is impossible to disguise all details and some may reveal crucial plot elements.
We've gone through several editorial changes since we started covering films in 1992 and older reviews are not as complete & accurate as recent ones; we plan to revisit and correct older reviews as resources and time permits.
Our ratings and reviews are based on the theatrically-released versions of films; on video there are often Unrated, Special, Director's Cut or Extended versions, (usually accurately labelled but sometimes mislabeled) released that contain additional content, which we did not review.
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