Fearless Parent Guide

Reid (voiced by Miles Robbins) has made it further than anyone else in his favorite video game, Planet Master. As he begins the final level, it becomes a little bit more real than he bargained for when three superpowered babies from the game land in his backyard. Reid and his friend Melanie (Yara Shahidi) must find a way to get the babies back to their father, Captain Lightspeed (Jadakiss), while also avoiding the evil Doctor Arcannis (Miguel J. Pimentel) who will stop at nothing to take the babies’ powers for himself.

The concept of a video game entering the real world, or vice versa, is not new. It’s been done with varying degrees of success in film over the last few years and is a concept that can lend itself to meta humor and fourth wall breaking. When I first heard about Fearless I thought it had the potential to be a self-aware, cleverly written, child friendly take on this idea, especially because the writer/director was one of the writers for Hoodwinked, which was ahead of its time in terms of subverting expectations and putting a postmodern twist on its genre. Spoiler alert: it’s not.

Fearless pulls off an incredible feat: it takes itself way too seriously while also not taking itself seriously enough. The “real world” characters are barely fazed by the fact that their video game characters are now real. There’s little more than a slightly raised voice to indicate some level of disbelief at the bizarre situation. But along with that, there are no jokes about it. There are no fourth wall breaks, no self-referencing, no jabs at the weirdness of the situation. Everything is played completely straight. The only humor to be found is jokes about diapers, burps, and pee. The exception is the character of General Blazerhatch (Gabrielle Union) who delivers a fantastic performance as an over-zealous commander providing some great one liners and running gags.

I found this movie to be a slog to watch, with one dimensional characters, no internal logic, and subpar voice acting (with the exception of Union). My three-year-old was decently entertained and enjoyed the superpowered battles. I think young children will enjoy it well enough, but teens and adults may well fear wasting an hour and half on a film that falls somewhere between boring and juvenile.