Wonder Park Parent Guide

June (Brianna Denski) and her mother (Jennifer Garner) have a fantastic game: they’re building an imaginary amusement park! June dreams up the rides and attractions for Wonder Park, along with a cute cast of animals who staff the park, and her mother makes them real by whispering them into Peanut’s ear, a stuffed chimpanzee who brings them to life with his magic marker. At least, that’s how it works in June’s imagination. Really, she and her family spend hours working together to build functioning models of the rides in their home. However, when June’s mom gets sick and has to go to a distant hospital for a little while, June packs up the park and spends her time worrying about everything from her mother to the tripping hazard posed by loose golf balls. Even her good friend Banky (Oev Michael Urbas) can’t snap her out of it. But when she finds the real park gates hidden in the forest, June realizes that abandoning Wonder Park has had consequences that reach further than she anticipated…

This is definitely a movie geared at young kids, and the ones at the showing I attended certainly seemed to be having a great time, with lots of laughter and even a few little gasps throughout. Parents might have a little less to chew on, but the movie is so heartfelt and sincere that it doesn’t feel like much of a slog (helped by the fact that the runtime is under an hour and a half). John Oliver’s character, Steve, a neurotic porcupine, is probably the biggest attempt to appeal to an older audience with his use of more complex words and admittedly entertaining peculiarities.

The animation is pretty, but nothing you haven’t seen before from bigger animation studios like Disney or Pixar. Where this film stands out is in its voice acting, which is very well done and has a surprisingly impressive cast. As I mentioned before, John Oliver stands out as doing an excellent job, but Brianna Denski and Oev Michael Urbas also do some really good work, especially for such young performers.

In all honesty, I’m very surprised that this film didn’t earn a “G” rating from the MPAA. Despite its PG rating, Wonder Park is far and away the single most family friendly film I have ever reviewed. Not only does the film lack offensive content, it actively promotes strong messages about friendship and teamwork, as well as the importance of creativity and the seriousness of mental illness. An added bonus is its focus on childhood anxiety, which will make it a welcome tool for parents trying to help their fretting children. The only things parents need to worry about is the strong likelihood that their kids will beg for trips to Disneyland or any other local amusement park. But given that Wonder Park provides a good time for the whole family, that’s a risk worth taking.