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“Air” bristles with the infectious energy of the man at its center: Sonny Vaccaro, who’s hustling to make the deal of a lifetime.

Of course, we know from the start that the former Nike executive succeeded: Michael Jordan became a superstar and arguably the greatest basketball player in the history of the game. And the Air Jordan, the shoe that gives the film its title, became the best-known and most-coveted sneaker of all time.

So how do you tell a story to which we already know the outcome? That’s where the deceptive brilliance of Ben Affleck ’s directing lies. His fifth feature is much in the same vein as the previous movies he’s helmed: “ Gone Baby Gone ,” “ The Town ,” “ Argo ” (which earned him a best-picture Oscar) and “Live By Night.” He makes the kind of solid, mid-budget movies for grown-ups that are far too rare these days. Affleck emphasizes strong writing, veteran performers and venerable behind-the-scenes craftspeople. His choice in cinematographer, longtime Martin Scorsese and Quentin Tarantino collaborator Robert Richardson , is a prime example.

With “Air,” it all comes together in an enormously entertaining package—one that’s old-fashioned but also alive and crowd-pleasing. Working from a sharp and snappy script by Alex Convery , Affleck tells the story of how Nike nabbed Jordan by creating a shoe that wasn’t just for him but of him—the representation of his soon-to-be iconic persona in a form that made us feel as if we, too, could reach such heights. This probably makes “Air” sound like a two-hour sneaker commercial. It is not. If you love movies about process, about people who are good at their jobs, then you’ll find yourself enthralled by the film’s many moments inside offices, conference rooms, and production labs.

The interactions within those mundane spaces make “Air” such a joy, starting with the reteaming of Affleck and Matt Damon . It’s a blast watching these longtime best friends, co-stars, and co-writers playing off each other again, provoking and cajoling, more than a quarter century after “ Good Will Hunting .” Damon stars as Sonny Vaccaro, the Nike recruiting expert who recognized the young North Carolina guard as a once-in-a-generation talent and pursued him relentlessly to keep him from Converse and Adidas cooler brands. Affleck is Nike co-founder and former CEO Phil Knight, an intriguing mix of Zen calm and corporate arrogance. He walks around the office barefoot, yet he drives a Porsche he insists is not purple but rather grape in hue. Vaccaro, as his friend and colleague from the company’s earliest days, is the only one who can speak truth to power, and the affection and friction of that camaraderie shine through.

The year is 1984 (boy, is it ever—more on that in a minute), and Nike’s basketball division is an afterthought within the Oregon-based running shoe company. Nike is also an also-ran among its competitors. Vaccaro, a doughy, middle-aged bulldog in various puddy-colored Members Only jackets (the on-point work of costume designer Charlese Antoinette Jones ), knows Jordan can change all that, and most “Air” consists of him convincing everyone around him of that notion. That includes director of marketing Rob Strasser ( Jason Bateman , whose mastery of dry, rat-a-tat banter is the perfect fit for this material); player-turned-executive Howard White (an amusingly fast-talking Chris Tucker ); Jordan’s swaggering agent, David Falk ( Chris Messina , who nearly steals the whole movie with one hilariously profane telephone tirade); and finally, Jordan’s proud and protective mother, Deloris ( Viola Davis , whose arrival provides the film with a new level of weight and wisdom). Character actor Matthew Maher , who always brings an intriguing presence to whatever film he’s in, stands out as Nike’s idiosyncratic shoe design guru, Peter Moore.

“Air” is a timeless underdog story of grit, dreams, and moxie. In that spirit, Vaccaro delivers a killer monologue at a crucial moment in hopes of sealing the deal with Jordan (whom Affleck shrewdly never shows us full-on—he remains an elusive idea, as he should be, but an intoxicating bit of crosscutting reveals the legacy he’ll leave over time). Still, Affleck very much hammers home the fact that we are in the mid-1980s. Sometimes, the evocation of this period comes in subtle and amusing ways, as in a throwaway joke about Kurt Rambis that made me chuckle. (You don’t have to know anything about basketball in general or this era in particular to enjoy the film, but there are many extra pleasures if you do.) More often, though, Affleck aims to create nostalgia with nearly wall-to-wall needle drops and overbearing pop culture references. As if the lengthy opening montage consisting of Cabbage Patch Kids, Hulk Hogan , the “Where’s the Beef?” ad, President Reagan, Princess Diana, and more weren’t enough, he randomly throws in a Rubik’s Cube or a stack of Trivial Pursuit cards as a transitional device. And the soundtrack of ‘80s hits is such a constant it becomes distracting, from the Violent Femmes and Dire Straits to Cyndi Lauper and Chaka Khan to a truly baffling use of Night Ranger’s “Sister Christian” as Knight is simply pulling into the Nike parking lot.

Still, this is a minor quibble about a movie that, for the most part, is as smooth and reliable as one of Jordan’s buzzer-beating, fadeaway jumpers.

Now playing on Prime today, May 12th.

Christy Lemire

Christy Lemire is a longtime film critic who has written for RogerEbert.com since 2013. Before that, she was the film critic for The Associated Press for nearly 15 years and co-hosted the public television series "Ebert Presents At the Movies" opposite Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, with Roger Ebert serving as managing editor. Read her answers to our Movie Love Questionnaire here .

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Film Credits

Rated R for language throughout.

112 minutes

Matt Damon as Sonny Vaccaro

Ben Affleck as Phil Knight

Jason Bateman as Rob Strasser

Marlon Wayans as George Raveling

Chris Messina as David Falk

Chris Tucker as Howard White

Viola Davis as Deloris Jordan

Julius Tennon as James Jordan

Damian Young as Michael Jordan

Matthew Maher as Peter Moore

Gustaf Skarsgård as Horst Dassler

Barbara Sukowa as Kathy Dassler

Jay Mohr as John Fisher

• Ben Affleck
• Alex Convery

Cinematographer

• Robert Richardson
• William Goldenberg

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Love is in the air, common sense media reviewers.

Formulaic opposites-attract romance; mild language, peril.

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What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Small community-based companies deserve to thrive.

All the principals in the small regional airline s

The movie is set in Australia and features Austral

A major storm brings down buildings, leaves people

Adults kiss.

"S--t," "bastard," "damn," "hell," and "wanker."

Adults drink beer.

Parents need to know that Love is in the Air is an Australian romance about a beautiful woman running her family's failing air service in a remote part of the country. The English private equity firm that funds the operation decides to close them down and sends the handsome son of the CEO to get that job done…

Positive Messages

Small community-based companies deserve to thrive. There's more to life than profits. It's important to help others.

Positive Role Models

All the principals in the small regional airline struggle to keep their vital company going despite financial threat from a major investor. All the members of the team care about their neighbors' wellbeing.

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Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that Love is in the Air is an Australian romance about a beautiful woman running her family's failing air service in a remote part of the country. The English private equity firm that funds the operation decides to close them down and sends the handsome son of the CEO to get that job done. Hatred then romance brews. A plane makes an emergency landing when its engine conks out. A major storm brings down buildings and shatters glass. A man is knocked out by flying debris. Language includes "s--t," "bastard, "hell," "damn," and "wanker." Adults drink beer and kiss. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

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Movie Details

• On DVD or streaming : September 28, 2023
• Cast : Delta Goodrem , Joshua Sasse , Steph Tisdell
• Director : Adrian Powers
• Inclusion Information : Female actors, Female writers
• Studio : Netflix
• Genre : Romance
• Run time : 88 minutes
• MPAA rating : NR
• Last updated : December 7, 2023

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Air age rating explained: Why is Air rated R?

By sabrina reed | feb 15, 2023.

Air hits theaters April 5, 2023. The film, which is directed by Ben Affleck, is inspired by the true story of Sonny Vaccaro’s mission to sign Michael Jordan to Nike in 1984.

Back then, the shoe company wasn’t what it is now and getting a promising young athlete to partner with them wasn’t an easy feat. However, Jordan’s name at the time wasn’t shrouded in greatness. He was a rookie who’d yet to step foot on an NBA court. Vaccaro was willing to bet on Jordan in the hopes that he would bet on Nike.

It was a risk that paid off in droves and spawned the multi-billion dollar global industry that is contemporary sneakers. However, in order to secure this partnership, Vaccaro had to reach out to Jordan’s parents, friends, former coaches, and mentors to forge a path forward to what would become a historic brand, Jordans.

The movie is a biopic about sports marketing and adjacently the beloved sport of basketball. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean the film is intended for all audiences. The Air age rating, as designated by the MPAA, is R. Here’s why.

Air age rating explained

As IMDb notes , Air is rated R for language throughout. If you’re a movie lover who’s watched films centered on the marketing industry that should come as no surprise. Profanity tends to be frequent and, while that won’t be a deterrent for some parents looking to watch this movie with a child, if you’re concerned about the use of language, we suggest not viewing  Air with younger children.

Watch the trailer for Air below:

dark. Next. 25 best '80s movies of all-time

Air releases exclusively in theaters Wednesday, April 5, 2023. Stay tuned to Hidden Remote for more movie news and coverage! We’ll keep you posted on what’s coming to theaters and streaming throughout the year.

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Air Parent Guide

Despite solid acting and believable characters, the movie fouls out on bad language..

Theaters: Although Nike shoes are icons in the running world, the company has struggled to find acceptance in basketball. So the basketball division aims high and decides to pursue a partnership with a promising rookie: Michael Jordan.

Release date April 5, 2023

Run Time: 112 minutes

Get Content Details

The guide to our grades, parent movie review by kirsten hawkes.

It’s 1984 and Sonny Vaccaro (Matt Damon) has every basketball fan’s dream job. It’s up to him to sign up basketball players to endorse Nike footwear, which requires attending umpteen basketball tournaments and watching endless tapes of past games. The job is great but there’s a big problem: Nike is a minor player in the basketball world and Sonny’s budget is too small to sign the players he wants. And the player he wants most is Michael Jordan (Damian Delano Young), who’s entertaining offers from Adidas, Converse - anyone but Nike.

Jordan’s antipathy to the company doesn’t stop Sonny, who pursues the athlete from every direction, courting old friends and even appealing to the parents. Sonny’s efforts get him a meeting, but now it’s up to Nike to come up with an offer that Jordan can’t resist. This will require more than money. Nike will need all the skill of its shoe designer and the insight that Sonny has acquired over decades in the game.

Air tells an interesting story, but the movie isn’t without flaws. The first is length: this film runs at least 15 minutes too long. I don’t object to thoughtful dramas but some of this movie is just bloat and the final act is dragged out to an unforgivable extent. The second problem is profanity. There are over 50 f-bombs in the film, mostly in arguments or casual conversation. Not only do the curse words give the production a Restricted rating, they are completely unnecessary. I understand that people swear in moments of stress, but this kind of excessive profanity doesn’t add anything to the story: it just turns the air blue.

Despite this movie’s unsuitability for family audiences, it will interest some adult viewers. I’m not sure that I’d spend the money for a movie ticket though. The film was produced by Amazon Studios which is a pretty clear indicator that it’s going to stream on Prime Video in the near future. Unless you’re completely obsessed with the world of sports endorsements, I’d wait and watch the movie from the comfort of my own couch.

About author

Kirsten hawkes, watch the trailer for air.

Air Rating & Content Info

Why is Air rated R? Air is rated R by the MPAA for language throughout.

Violence: An angry man threatens to bite off someone’s genitals: this is not a serious threat but is part of an argument. Sexual Content: There is a brief glimpse of a nude male statue with visible genitals. Profanity: The script contains at least 55 sexual expletives, 18 scatological curses, 15 minor profanities, three terms of deity and six anatomical terms. There are also crude slang expressions for male genitalia. Alcohol / Drug Use: Adults drink alcohol in a social context. There are rare scenes of background characters smoking cigarettes.

Page last updated January 23, 2024

Air Parents' Guide

Nike’s Ten Principles come up throughout the movie. What do you think of them? Do any resonate with you? How faithfully do the members of Nike’s management team follow them? What happens when they break the rules? Is rule breaking ever a good idea? What would have happened to Sonny if his gamble on Michael Jordan failed?

Medium: The 10 Principles at Nike

Loved this movie? Try these books…

If you are a sneakerhead and can’t get enough information about your favorite footwear, there are plenty of books to choose from. For more about Nike, you can read Shoe Dog by Phil Knight, founder of the shoe company with the famous swoosh.

If basketball shoes are your thing, you can read Slam Kicks: Basketball Sneakers That Changed the Game by Ben Osbourne and Robert “Scoop” Jackson.

For business intrigue in the shoe world that doesn’t include Nike, try out Barbara Smith’s Sneaker Wars, the story of the cutthroat battle between Adidas and Puma.

For the truly obsessive, there’s Out of the Box: The Rise of Sneaker Culture, written by Elizabeth Semmelhack with the cooperation of shoe museums and corporate archives from major shoe manufacturers.

Related home video titles:

Matt Damon stars in another story about business and sports when he plays racecar designer Carroll Shelby in Ford v. Ferrari .

The business of sport is highlighted in Moneyball , a film about Billy Beane, the general manager of the Oakland A’s, who uses statistics to pick the players he believes his team needs.

Rookie players turn the tables in the fictional Hustle and in real life stories such as The Rookie, Invincible , and Brian’s Song.

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‘air’ review: ben affleck’s ode to michael jordan is affectionate and involving, even when it fails to convince.

The 'Argo' actor/director stars alongside Matt Damon and Viola Davis in this feature about the creation of Nike's Air Jordan shoe.

By Lovia Gyarkye

Lovia Gyarkye

Arts & Culture Critic

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Ben Affleck ’s Air operates in a respectful and deeply reverential register when it comes to its subject, his family and the sport in which he made his legacy. The film, which premiered at SXSW , chronicles the tense Nike campaign to sign Michael Jordan, then an NBA rookie, to his first sneaker deal in 1984. That contract, closed a year before the first Air Jordans were sold to the public, changed Nike’s reputation and altered the way players negotiated brand deals.

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For most audiences, Air will be worth seeing just for the starry cast — particularly the reunion between Damon and Affleck. Their scenes possess a kinetic and intimate dynamism that the rest of the film approaches but doesn’t always match. The old friends are magnetic as Sonny — who’s in charge of the company’s flailing basketball division — and Phil try to take Nike to the next level. (Before signing Jordan, the shoe company held a meager 17 percent of the market compared to competitors Adidas and Converse.) Their conversations take place in Phil’s appropriately retro office (the production design is by François Audouy) and offer insights into how both executives tried to balance the imagination of Nike’s scrappy roots alongside its corporate ambitions.

Phil and Sonny’s divergent ideologies come to a head when Sonny proposes putting all of the fledgling division’s money on Michael Jordan. The boss disagrees, and he’s not the only skeptic. His colleagues Howard White (Chris Tucker), Rob Strasser ( Jason Bateman ) and George Raveling (Marlon Wayans), one of Jordan’s coaches at the 1984 Olympics, all try to dissuade him. The dynamics within this group of coworkers and friends offer most of the film’s comedic relief while also helping us deepen our understanding of Nike’s philosophy. When they are later joined by Peter Moore (Matthew Maher), Nike’s creative director, the film applies — wonderfully — the poetic reverence usually reserved for portraying the sport in these types of dramas to the process of designing a shoe.

Sonny isn’t one to take no for an answer or ignore his instincts. After a crucial call with Jordan’s agent, David Falk (a hilarious Chris Messina ), Sonny flies from Oregon to North Carolina to court Jordan’s parents. Deloris (Davis) and James (Julius Tennon) turn out to be a tougher crowd than Sonny anticipated. They are immune to his salesman charm and unfazed by his dramatic entrance onto their property. Deloris, especially, demands a quiet respect, which Sonny, in awe, gives her.

And those experiences matter. Sonny and Deloris are bound by a profound and unwavering belief in Jordan, but, as she suggests during one conversation, his strong sense of self is a product of the lessons she has taught him. It’s Deloris’ and her son’s understanding of their worth that leads them to negotiate a contract giving Jordan a percentage of the revenue from Air Jordan sales.

Beneath the sentimentalism of Air are hints of an even more compelling thread: How do you compensate people in a society organized around corporate greed? The film’s third act highlights and circles the notion of equity. Jordan’s contract changed the way players made money from brand deals. A note right before the closing credits informs us that Sonny would play a critical role in taking on the N.C.A.A. and helping college athletes get paid for commercial use of their likeness. All of this feels prescient considering Affleck’s recent venture: Last year, he and Damon started Artists Equity , a production company that operates on a profit-sharing model in hopes of creating better deals for everyone employed to make movies. It makes Air feel like a letter of admiration — to Jordan, his family, the tenacious execs at Nike — and a statement of Affleck’s future intentions.

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‘Air’ Review: The Game Changers

In Ben Affleck’s enjoyable movie, Matt Damon stars as the Nike exec who’s trying to sign a young Michael Jordan. But first he must contend with Viola Davis.

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By Manohla Dargis

It’s ridiculous how entertaining “Air” is given that it’s about shoes, even if it works overtime to persuade you that it’s also about other, nobler truths, too. Mind you, the pair that Nike presented to Michael Jordan in a 1984 meeting were custom. The company wanted badly to sign Jordan to an endorsement deal, so it created black-and-red high tops with a white midsole and a multimillion-dollar sweetener. Jordan may have preferred Adidas, but he soon laced up for Nike, changing footwear, sports stardom and athletic marketing forever.

Directed by Ben Affleck, the frothily amusing and very eager-to-please “Air” tells the oft-told tale of how Nike signed Jordan to a contract that made each astonishingly rich. Yet while the man and the money are inevitably central to this deeply American story, both remain strategically obscured. Jordan (Damian Young) is shown only in teasing partial view, his face concealed (you see the real Jordan in archival images), an initially distracting decision that grows less gimmicky and seems more natural as the story shifts focus toward virtuous, less fungible human values like love, genius, grit, perseverance, righteousness and faith.

The movie’s principal true believer is Sonny Vaccaro (Matt Damon). (Like most of the main characters, Vaccaro is based on, and named after, a real person , though the actual Sonny is far juicier than he is here.) A vision in beige with a beeper attached to his belt, his belly spilling over that same belt, Sonny is a familiar, cartoonish sad-sack, a figure right out of Mike Judge’s “Office Space.” He’s divorced and still unattached, and his workaholic habits don’t bode well for romance. He routinely buys his nightly dinner at the local convenience store, making small talk with the clerk, then eats alone while staring at the TV or, in his case, side-by-side sets.

The story heats up when Sonny and his colleagues at Nike start looking at the latest N.B.A. draftees to sign. Nike doesn’t want to spend much, so most of its execs are scouring the lower picks. But Sonny has a gift for spotting talent, and he’s aiming high: Jordan, the 21-year-old who’s left college early and whose moves he studies on smeary tape. Not everyone can read the future or see talent like Sonny, and much of the movie involves his wooing of two notably different dealmakers and breakers: Phil Knight (an amusing Affleck), Nike’s preening co-founder and chief executive, and Jordan’s mother, Deloris (a sensational Viola Davis).

Written by Alex Convery, “Air” nicely hits the sweet spot between light comedy and lighter drama that’s tough to get right. It’s funny, but its generous laughs tend to be low-key and are more often dependent on their delivery than on the actual writing. Damon is crucial to selling the humor. He’s packed on weight for the role, and he gives the character a stolid, tamped-down physicality, but he also lets you see the eddies of anger and frustration raging under the character’s skin. Sonny is put-upon and dejected, but he’s quick witted and doesn’t suffer fools (or Knight), and his patience has already been worn perilously thin when the story opens.

Waiting for Sonny to explode helps build the comic tension; watching him try to sign Jordan creates the relatively less punchy drama. Some of the juiciest laughs come from Sonny’s interactions with the gnomic Knight, a showboating supporting role that Affleck embraces with a sly, vacant deadpan and tragically unhip styling. Affleck knows how to steal scenes, and he pilfers a few, but he’s a very good and generous director of actors. He’s loaded up “Air” with terrific supporting players, including Jason Bateman and Chris Tucker, who, as Nike suits, add distinct flavor and some brilliant contrapuntal timing to the mix.

Along with Damon, the movie’s other M.V.P. is Davis, whose beautifully modulated performance helps deepen the story and expand its emotional palette. Davis is often called on to go big in her roles, to let the emotion and snot flow, so it’s a pleasure watching her hold back and change it up with lapidary, minimalist precision. Like Damon, she gives her character a palpable physical solidity, but Deloris is entirely comfortable, at ease in her body and in the world, and she’s in charge. You only read her face when she wants. Michael is the star of this world, but it’s Deloris who exerts the family’s greatest gravitational force.

Affleck handles all the story’s many parts gracefully, mostly by keeping them continually spinning. There’s a lot of walking-and-talking both in offices and in halls, which never gets dull largely because of who’s doing the walking and talking. What they’re chattering about is critical, even if the movie has distilled the hard-charging, world-shifting, sometimes (oftentimes!) ethically challenged business of professional sports into a group of really nice, funny, well-meaning personalities and one not-as-nice agent, David Falk (Chris Messina), a trash-talking, phone-smashing, profane motormouth right out of HBO’s “Entourage.”

“Air” is enjoyably facile and light as a feather, though sometimes touching, never more so than in a late, deftly handled face-off between Sonny and Deloris that brings the larger racial stakes of the landmark deal into crystalline focus. Here, as elsewhere, the movie deviates from the historical record — including the sometimes divergent , widely published accounts — to make a richer, heftier, more meaningful story. As Affleck cuts back and forth between Sonny and Deloris, filling the screen with close-ups that let you track every rivulet of emotion, it’s hard not to be moved, including by the sight of these exceptional actors who, with heart and talent, ever so briefly turn a story about capitalism into a referendum on the soul of a nation.

Air Rated R for language. Running time: 1 hour 52 minutes. In theaters.

Manohla Dargis is the chief film critic of The Times, which she joined in 2004. She has an M.A. in cinema studies from New York University, and her work has been anthologized in several books. More about Manohla Dargis

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Movie review: 'air'.

Bob Mondello

Ben Affleck directs the story of how a small athletic shoe maker cracked the big time in 1984 by introducing a shoe for an untested rookie named Michael Jordan.

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“Air,” Reviewed: It’s Fun to Spend Time with These People, but We Don’t Know Much About Them

By Richard Brody

“Air” is a meaningful movie but an unsatisfying one. It’s a fascinating story vigorously depicted and acted, featuring characters whose heroism is unusual and whose place in history is both secure and obscure. The movie, directed by Ben Affleck, who also co-stars, depicts how Nike recruited Michael Jordan to the company, creating the Air Jordan line and thereby making the company very profitable and Jordan very rich. It’s a story of cultural change, of the invention of a ubiquitous style and its wider implications. Yet the film is a hermetic one, self-contained and nearly context-free, that thrusts its protagonists so far into the foreground that they block the movie’s purview. Rather than magnifying these characters, the close view diminishes them, elides their accomplishments from society at large, and renders them a mere success story .

The film delivers its own backstory. (It differs, of course, from some accounts of how Jordan came to join Nike.) In 1984, Nike is mired in third place behind the two industry leaders, Converse and Adidas. Sonny Vaccaro (Matt Damon), a basketball guru and a major promoter in the high-school and college game, is employed by Nike to provide contacts in the basketball world. The company is seeking endorsements from incoming rookies chosen in that year’s N.B.A. draft, and has committed two hundred and fifty thousand dollars to be spread among multiple players. But Sonny is fixated on the idea of putting all the eggs in one basket, concentrating the entire sum on one incoming player: Michael Jordan, taken third in the draft, by the Chicago Bulls.

Sonny’s plan poses a large risk to the company; his colleagues, other executives, and the company’s C.E.O., Phil Knight (Affleck), are leery of the plan. Moreover, Jordan’s agent, David Falk (Chris Messina), is guiding the athlete toward either of Nike’s two bigger and richer competitors. So, aided by wise counsel from two Black men—Howard White (Chris Tucker), the only Black executive at Nike who figures in the film, and George Raveling (Marlon Wayans), a prominent college-basketball coach who’s also Sonny’s longtime friend—Sonny makes an end run around both David and Phil and takes his pitch for Nike directly to the de-facto boss of Jordan’s business concerns: the athlete’s mother, Deloris (Viola Davis), at the family home, in Wilmington, North Carolina. (Michael, played by Damian Young, appears only as a background character.)

The question of why in the world this quest is of any dramatic significance is rooted in the three prime lines of drama that the movie’s script, by Alex Convery, boldly sketches: Sonny’s quest, Deloris’s quest, and Phil’s quest. The movie rushes by agreeably because its story is constructed three-dimensionally; every action, every moment, is plotted simultaneously on three lines of effort, which don’t all cohere into a single shape until the happy ending.

Sonny sparks the action as the only sports marketer who recognizes Jordan as not just a very talented player but a great one, because of the combined superiority of Jordan’s athletic ability and unique sense of will, determination, even destiny. Affleck cannily, even cagily, reveals the insight on which Sonny’s judgment is based, in a scene that’s among the movie’s most enticing. Sonny watches, over and over, a videotape of Jordan’s signature moment in college ball—a championship-winning shot that he hit in 1982. Shortly thereafter, Sonny forces Rob Strasser (Jason Bateman), an executive who runs marketing, to watch the same snippet of tape. Sonny explains that he sees hidden in it, in plain sight, Jordan’s awareness that he’ll be getting the ball on a planned play, his relaxed confidence in taking a shot that’s critical to his own career, his coach’s career, and the team’s fortunes. It’s the quality that Sonny defines as greatness, and he can detect it both as a student of the game and an insightful psychologist (like a filmmaker who perceives the transcendent star quality of an untested actor). That intuition is what drives Sonny’s all-out effort to recruit Jordan for Nike.

When Deloris is convinced that Nike is the right choice, she adds a contractual stipulation that is both an inspiration and a grand, even historic, declaration of principle: that, in addition to his fee, her son be paid a percentage of every sale of an Air Jordan shoe, anywhere in the world. The principle, of course, is that the athlete is no mere adornment for the brand but, rather, the prime source of the shoe’s value, not an amplification to the business but the crucial participant in it. The moral essence of her insistence is that the athlete is entitled to a part of the wealth that they create—and the political implication, unvoiced but resonant, is that Black athletes should have a share of the vast wealth that they’re creating for white-run businesses.

Affleck, both as an actor and a director, emphasizes Phil’s idiosyncratic temperament and his co-creation of Nike as a reflection of his personality. (This approach is reflected in the deployment of the company’s aphoristic statement of principles, which are quoted onscreen and illustrated in dramatic scenes.) Yet, after the company went public in 1980, Phil is beholden to a board of directors, who, with an eye on the bottom line, scrutinize his decisions and could even fire him. Sonny asserts that the spirit of the company is at risk of being lost if Phil loses confidence in his own judgment (which is to say, in Sonny) and yields to corporate routine, boardroom prudence, and business-school calculations. Consider Sonny a filmmaker and Phil a producer.

That analogy, far from being merely a hint of Affleck and Damon’s personal investment in the story of “Air,” is at the core of Affleck’s direction. The drama is something like a parody and a perversion of auteurism—a top-down and mastermind-centric view of the recruitment of Jordan, one that takes little interest in the wide range of activities involved in the project and in the development of the shoe, little interest in who’ll be buying the shoe and what it will mean to the buyer. Howard underscores the market importance of basketball shoes because of the racial gap in the running-shoe market, joking that Black people are unlikely to go jogging for fear of being mistaken for fleeing suspects. It’s a line of dialogue that does a huge amount of work, in lieu of drama.

“Air” is a story of fashion, of music, of sports and athleticism themselves as a kind of style and even of artistic expression; of the sudden ubiquity of popular musicians by way of music videos and MTV; of the relationship of American racial politics to style; and of the rapid and definitive emergence of hip-hop as the prime national and international music. The shoes are being marketed foremost to young Black consumers, yet the prospective buyers are never heard from, hardly even seen. The only young Black character in the film (other than Michael Jordan) is a clerk (Asanté Deshon) at a 7-Eleven, a basketball fan who opines to Sonny that Jordan is “too small for the N.B.A.” (Later in the film, after Jordan has become a star, he tells Sonny, “We all knew.”) The point is, doubtless unintentionally, a sordid one: that, in the street, the prevailing wisdom holds sway, but, to lead public opinion, to create a phenomenon, it takes the leadership of an expert—someone like Sonny.

The process that “Air” details is nonetheless absorbing. Sonny’s acumen extends beyond the basketball court into the business side, as when, at his first meeting with Deloris, he’s both unusually candid and insightful about the disadvantages that a contract with Converse or Adidas would pose to Michael. (Her confidence in Sonny’s judgment is reinforced when his predictions about the course of the Jordans’ meetings with those companies’ executives prove correct.) Sonny stage-manages the actual business of persuasion—the pitch that Nike will formally make to the Jordans, Deloris and James (Julius Tennon, Davis’s real-life husband)—and it involves a twist of clumsiness that’s amusing, and a burst of inspiration that’s thrilling. (I won’t spoil the backstory, which involves a lesson that George, as a long-ago witness to a historic event, imparts to Sonny.)

“Air” is a dialogue-rich film, as befits a movie about negotiations, and the dialogue is delivered with flair and enthusiasm, not least because its actors contributed greatly to crafting it. The script is the first by Convery to be produced, and he reports (in a fascinating interview by Kate Erbland ) that Affleck and the cast—mainly Damon, Tucker, and Davis—subjected the screenplay to a high level of revision. Tucker wrote most of his own dialogue, and Davis wrote the most important part of hers. (Don’t trust the credits: in general, directors and actors with significant artistry and clout are surely doing a significant amount of writing.) Damon is both commanding and miscast, both conspicuously gleeful in the role of Sonny yet all too breezy and lacking spice and rough edges; it’s Davis who, in a relatively little amount of screen time, gives the film its anchoring performance.

However, the movie’s florid talk doesn’t only serve the drama or provide the sheer pleasure of the back-and-forth. The talk fills the movie like dramatic spacing and padding, delivering moods—man-to-man ballbusting, sentimental bonding, earnest confessions—as a way of marking time and building suspense without actually conveying much about characters, their experiences and their thoughts, or yielding the screen to characters or situations who aren’t at the center of the story and the top of the pyramid.

The most crucial of those additional presences is Peter Moore (Matthew Maher), the shoemaker. He’s at once a scientist and an artist, an engineer and a fashion designer, who cocoons himself in his underlit, laboratory-like studio. Inspired by Arthur Ashe’s line of tennis racquets, Sonny wants Peter to make a shoe to Jordan’s own specifications; as I watched the movie, I was intensely curious about what this notion would mean in practice. But the movie spends very little time in the laboratory or with Peter. When Sonny goes to see what Peter has come up with, the engineer proudly declares that he has achieved something new: “It is the logic of water.” It’s a nice line, but what does he mean? It’s negatively exemplary of the film that its crucially physical aspect—the one where the foot goes into the shoe, where the rubber hits the road—is elided in favor of a one-liner and a conceptual hand wave.

Lack of physicality is perhaps the defining trait of Affleck’s direction, both here and in his Oscar-winning “ Argo .” (Both films were the result of a script from the Black List , the Hollywood honor roll of notable unproduced screenplays.) What Affleck creates, as a director, is fishbowl cinema, observing his characters’ action without any seeming point of contact with the actors, without any sense of presence, through walls of glass thicker and more airtight than those of his camera’s lenses. His sense of story is so specific that he displays it whole and closed off, without any apparent curiosity about what goes into it and what arises from it; his conception of characters is so closely tied to dramatic necessity that he neglects to consider them as people. The movie’s substance remains largely implicit; its pleasures are partial, detached, and superficial. It offers little context, background, personality, or anything that risks distracting from the show. ♦

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Air Review: A Slam Dunk Sports Film Captures Greatness

Sonny Vaccaro (Matt Damon) convinces Nike CEO Phil Knight (Ben Affleck) to pursue Michael Jordan in 1984.

Ben Affleck and Matt Damon deliver their best film since the Oscar-winning Good Will Hunting . Air tells the incredible true story of Nike's fateful decision to put their entire basketball operation on the shoulders of a talented young athlete. Michael Jordan, who's never seen, became the greatest basketball player of all time. His eponymous shoe brand dominating athletic sportswear for decades. But in 1984, he was just another promising rookie in a crowded NBA Draft.

Sonny Vaccaro (Damon) returns exasperated to Nike headquarters in Beaverton, Oregon. The basketball talent scout didn't agree with the company's direction. Nike had achieved great success in the running shoes market. They were flailing against behemoths Adidas and Converse to secure basketball stars. The sales numbers were grim. Nike CEO Phil Knight (Affleck) was under considerable pressure to shut down the basketball business and terminate the entire department.

A Contentious Meeting

Marketing executives Rob Strasser (Jason Bateman) and Howard White (Chris Tucker) had a plan to spread their meager in comparison budget across multiple prospective players. Sonny scoffs at the idea during a contentious meeting. They were never going to compete with heavyweight basketball stars like Magic Johnson and Larry Bird. Later that night, Sonny changes everyone's fortunes after reviewing tape of the 1982 Georgetown vs. North Carolina NCAA National Championship. Michael Jordan wins the game in a classic last second buzzer beater.

Sonny races back to the office with a bold strategy. Jordan was going to transform the sport — they should put their eggs in his basket. Phil thinks he's crazy; Rob and Howard agree. They didn't have a chance. Jordan will undoubtedly sign with Adidas or Converse, so Sonny reaches out to Jordan's ruthless agent, David Falk (Chris Messina). Falk laughs at and berates him, but does reveal a critical piece of information: Michael's mother, Deloris Jordan (Viola Davis), makes every decision. So Sonny does the unthinkable and flies to North Carolina, appealing to her directly, thus incurring Falk's formidable wrath and putting Nike's leadership in a cutthroat battle to sign a promising but unproven young man.

Related: Best Sports Biopics of All Time, Ranked

The outcome is never in question, of course, as audiences (especially those sporting Air Jordan sneakers) may know their history. Nonetheless, screenwriter Alex Convery, sublime in his feature debut, captures the thrilling unknowns of a pivotal point in time. Sonny's unwavering belief had dire consequences. He committed to a course of action that threatened Nike and its employees, but Sonny wasn't excoriated or fired for such a brash move. Initial fury gives way to unconditional support; Nike was born from progressive thinking, after all. They had faith in Sonny and trusted his instincts. The ensemble scenes of the Nike team coming together are absolutely enthralling.

Air Is an Early Awards Contender

Affleck's brilliant as a director and co-star. Air takes you back to the vibrant '80s with fantastic nostalgia. The rocking soundtrack, settings, and period costumes engulf you in a bygone era. Affleck playfully mocks Phil Knight's Buddhist sayings and fashion sense. I laughed out loud at his springy perm and colorful jogging outfits. He and Damon anchor the film with a bedrock relationship that's evident in every collaboration. They know how to get the best from each other. Air is a slam dunk and early awards contender across the board.

Air is a production of Amazon Studios, Skydance Sports, Artists Equity, and Mandalay Pictures. It will have a theatrical release on April 5th from Amazon Studios , ahead of its streaming release on Prime Video.

Air (2023) Movie Ending, Explained and Themes Analyzed – What demand from Deloris reformed sports globally?

Air (2023) Movie Ending, Explained : Under Ben Affleck’s able direction, the new sports movie ‘Air’ really takes off. The story is not a biographical film or a dramatization of how Nike became the present-day corporate entity. ‘Air’ cleverly mashes together the behind-the-scenes debauchery of Nike’s deal to sign Michael Jordan and observant commentary about a revolutionary reform in sports history. There are marked and worthy inklings of the American culture at the time and how basketball today is the nation’s heartbeat. Matt Damon, Jason Bateman, Viola Davis, and Ben Affleck himself star in the central roles, while Chris Tucker and Chris Messina portray supporting yet pivotal characters.

‘Air’s cinematic universe is short and streamlined. But there is a lingering stoicism that keeps the viewer at a distance from articulating what the film is really about. ‘Air’ is thoroughly engaging yet confounding when you switch off the screens and think about what you saw. It is purposefully understated to disarm you with its brilliance and creative genius. We are at hand to break down ‘Air’ for you with an ending explainer and a discussion of the film’s major themes. 

Air (2023) Plot Summary & Movie Synopsis:

The film is set in the 80s, specifically beginning in 1984, when Nike was the third biggest sports shoe player in America. It stood behind Converse and Adidas but didn’t vibe with America’s youth. It had a respectable market share in the business, but it wasn’t the best. Nike had a strong presence in the running shoe market. But that was all set to change as Sonny Vaccaro, Nike’s genius yet eccentric marketing genius, believed basketball was going to be the flavor of the future. His obsessive streak to sign Michael Jordan, in turn, revolutionized sports history and changed the fortunes of Nike. It built the company into the machine as we know it today. 

How does Vaccaro convince Deloris about the Nike deal?

Michael Jordan was more inclined to sign a deal with Adidas. The German shoe company had a thumping ~64% share in the sneaker market in America and represented the most elite-level athletes in the business. Being associated with Adidas meant you were qualified as great just for the sake of this association. People viewed you differently if you bore the Adidas name. That was Jordan’s primary driver to make a deal with Adidas. Converse was his second option which had the likes of Magic Johnson and Larry Bird on its roster.

Understand Jordan’s predicament with this analogy. If you tell some up-and-coming kid today that you potentially sign with a brand that represents Lionel Messi and Roger Federer or a brand that represents Eden Hazard and Nick Kyrgios, which would they choose? So, coming back to ‘Air.’ Sonny Vaccaro, played by Matt Damon, is caught in two minds. David Falk (Messina), Jordan’s manager, had already rebuffed Vaccaro’s attempts to approach Jordan or his family.

If he were to do that, Vaccaro could have landed in a lot of trouble. His career would have been over, and Nike could potentially lose out on lucrative deals with elite athletes. But Vaccaro desperately wanted to sign Jordan, even if it meant taking that risk. He was inspired by Goerge Raveling’s story about how he met Martin Luther King one day due to chasing the instinctive feeling that makes all the difference. 

Vaccaro went to North Carolina and to the Jordans’ house. He sat down with Deloris, who called all the shots for Michael. He persuaded her by foreshadowing what Converse and Adidas executives would tell the Jordan family in their meetings to pitch themselves as his sponsor. At those companies, Jordan would be “one of the greats,” but Vaccaro was offered to make Jordan the best one at Nike, and instead of the player serving the company, it would be the other way around.

Later in the film, when the meetings would eventually happen, Vaccaro was proved right. Deloris was convinced to get Michael into a meeting with Nike, which he had originally refused. 

Why was Vaccaro willing to bet his career on signing Michael Jordan?

Vaccaro was an oddball at Nike. He didn’t have many fancy degrees or wasn’t very charming to be a slick executive. All he had was insight and gut feeling. He was a visionary, even if his ideas and methods weren’t traditional. Watching him instantly reminds me of Brad Pitt’s Billy Beane from Moneyball. In fact, throw in Adam Sandler’s Stanley Sugerman from Hustle, and it gives you the complete picture of Vaccaro. He was tasked with the herculean task of making Nike’s basketball division the best in the biz. Without his involvement, it was likely that Nike would have been late to the party and missed out on the NBA revolution ushered by Jordan’s introduction.

Not only did Vaccaro recognize that the NBA would be a money minter in the future, but he also saw how Jordan could change the game. He saw greatness in the 18-year-old Jordan like very few people could profess to do. In hindsight, it all looks relatively easy to do. But that is the deception of looking back at things that fools many self-anointed visionaries. Vaccaro was betting his career on Michael Jordan because he was a gambling man.

He understood very well that losing 99 chips out of 100 doesn’t push you out of the game. But winning just one of them not only gets you back but wins you the game itself. Funnily enough, Carles Rexach and Joan Gaspart took a risk by bringing a skinny, tiny 13-year-old boy from Rosario, Argentina, to Football Club Barcelona. Such was their urgency that they signed a contract on a paper napkin. And today, Argentinian is regarded as the great football player of all time. That is what Vaccaro saw in Jordan; the potential to change an entire country.

Analysis of Major Themes in ‘Air’ (2023)

Taking risks – “you’re remembered for the rules you break”.

“You miss 100% of the shots you do not take”, Michael G. Scott. Yes, the overarching inspiration from ‘Air’s story is the courage to take risks. It took Vaccaro betting everything on this one chip to change the fortunes of Nike. But it worked. Vaccaro is a gambling man. He knows he’s not going to win every hand. But that doesn’t mean he’s going to stop taking them. If perfection is the name of the game, men like Vaccaro wouldn’t exist. But they do, and that is why we get to see stories like ‘Air.’

His philosophy is a life lesson that people don’t like preaching precisely because of the existing elements of risk. You need to win one big hand that compensates for all the other failures in your life. All the other hands that you lost – stop mattering when you win the one that matters the most. Those who do like taking risks and putting themselves out there in sight of the vagaries of destiny often accomplish great things. It is not about gamification of life and trivializing life decisions but approaching them with a renewed belief in yourself that you might be right. 

Belief – up in the air until it actually happens

Belief and trust are what compelled Phillip Knight to put his own neck on the line and get approval for Vaccaro’s plan from the Board of Directors. The whole plan was hinged on the “belief” that Michael Jordan could change the fortunes of the company. Vaccaro’s monologue in the meeting with the Jordans at Nike’s HQ encapsulates the theme of belief in ‘Air’ while also underlining how important it is to back up your bets with this invisible thing that can give us so much hope and drive us forward.

No one believes in you or validates your ideas until they see the end results. The certainty of outcomes is a fallacy that enslaves you mentally, never allowing you to see beyond what you can. It is all a game of dreaming big and seeing your vision materialize into something great that only you can see. And then trying to convince others around you to make it happen. 

Commentary about the Changing Dynamics in Sports

The issue of image rights has been somewhat alien to the current generations. Even though the number of people watching sports and idolizing icons has increased manifold, ‘Air’ brings out many reforms in its understated commentary on the issue. As more people got television sets back in the day, the number of eyeballs for sports in general increased. Some players and games became more popular than others, and hence, made more money for the broadcasters. Gradually, advertisements began gathering pace and meshed with this evolving world. That is the board lineage of how image rights for athletes became a reality. We will be discussing it further in the next segment. 

Air (2023) Movie Ending, Explained:

‘Air’ ends with Nike getting the deal as Doris gave an ultimatum to Vaccaro, which he discussed with Steve Knight (the CEO), who agreed to the demands. Nike did everything possible to ruffle the feathers and get its neck further than Converse and Adidas. They took big risks to get Michael to the negotiating table that paid off. But an even bigger risk was agreeing to Deloris’ demand that seemed preposterous at the time. 

What was the demand from Deloris that reformed sports globally?

Deloris wanted the family to have a share of gross sales of Air Jordans, the sneakers named after Michael, worldwide. She firmly believed that Jordan would change the game of basketball in America and the world over. And for doing that, he deserved a cut. It had never happened in sports until then, as we saw Vaccaro plead with her to rethink it. But Michael’s belief in himself was reflected in Deloris’ confidence, and she stuck by her stance. Knight gave the green light, thinking it wouldn’t cost the company too much.

As the credits are about to roll, we see Knight saying to himself that the amount could be close to $3 million. But the actual sales figure for the Jordans that year for Nike was a staggering $162 million, proving Deloris and Vaccaro’s confidence true. Sales today from the Jordans are roughly $4 billion, and the Jordan family rightly gets it’s due for taking basketball and Nike to the next level. 

The dining truly epitomizes the sculpting of the American dream. There is a slight artistic rage against mass media for “ building you up into something that doesn’t exist and then tearing you down when you cannot be that thing anymore.” It was a conscious, impactful, and apropos take that only elevates ‘Air’ in our perception.

Read More: Air (2023): Movie Review – A Biopic That Gives A Mainstream Legacy To Some Lesser-Known Names

Air (2023) prime video movie trailer.

Air (2023) Links:  IMDb ,  Rotten Tomatoes ,  Wikipedia Air (2023) Cast: Matt Damon, Jason Bateman, Ben Affleck

Where to watch air, trending right now.

Self-effacing and self-absorbed. College at RGNUL. A Cùle forever. Driven, ambitious, and "I hate most people". Oh, and I love movies if that wasn't obvious.

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clock This article was published more than  1 year ago

‘Air’ shoots and scores, with story, character, catharsis and depth

We all know how the tale of Michael Jordan and Nike ends up, but Ben Affleck’s film about it is a smart and entertaining delight

“Air,” Ben Affleck’s funny, moving and surprisingly meaningful tale of how Nike came to create Air Jordan basketball shoes, might have been a real snore. We all know how the story ends, and do we really need a movie that perpetuates yet another David-and-Goliath myth about a world-dominating corporation?

Apparently, the answer is yes: Working from a well-judged script by first-time screenwriter Alex Convery and enlisting a superb cast of appealing ensemble players, Affleck has created something that Hollywood has seemed incapable of making in recent years: a smart, entertaining movie that, for all its foregone conclusions and familiar beats, unfolds with the offhand confidence of the most casually impressive layup.

The key to any story, especially one the audience already thinks it knows, is choosing the right donkey — the person who will not only lead us through the plot but make us care. Enter Matt Damon as Sonny Vaccaro, a Nike talent scout who, as the movie opens, is working college games and nursing a compulsive gambling habit. “Air” begins in the 1980s, shortly after the company has gone public; although co-founder Phil Knight had attained a 50 percent market share in the athletic shoe market, in basketball he was trailing behind Converse and Adidas. During the era of Rolodexes, Rubik’s Cubes, Reagan and rappers — all of which are name-checked in “Air’s” snappy opening montage set to Dire Straits’ “Money for Nothing” — Nike’s hippest product was tracksuits, not sneakers.

Sonny’s colleagues at Nike, including marketing executive Rob Strasser (Jason Bateman), field rep Howard White (Chris Tucker) and Knight (Affleck), seem to have accepted their lot as also-rans when Sonny suggests betting their entire sponsorship budget on the young North Carolina phenom Michael Jordan. What ensues might best be described as “Jerry Maguire” meets “King Richard,” as Sonny goes head to head with his bosses, Jordan’s fast-talking agent (Chris Messina), and the ultimate decision-maker and toughest negotiator of them all: Jordan’s mother, Deloris.

Affleck has said in interviews that Michael Jordan had only one stipulation in the making of “Air”: that Viola Davis would play Deloris. Affleck granted that request, and when Davis enters the proceedings, the weather changes. Up until her appearance, Damon, Bateman, Tucker and Affleck — who as Knight drives an absurd purple Porsche, wears goofy running get-ups and spouts corny New Age aphorisms — keep the balloon afloat with pacey jocularity and a slick, fast-moving business story. Once Sonny goes to North Carolina to meet Deloris and James Jordan (the latter is played by Davis’s real-life husband, Julius Tennon), “Air” transforms from a worthy if conventional underdog tale to the chronicle of a seismic cultural shift.

“Air” is that rare sports movie that is virtually guaranteed to appeal to both hardcore NBA fans and people who don’t know a three-point line from a field goal (thanks, Wikipedia!). The key, of course, is the human factor, here channeled through consistently relaxed, irresistibly likable performances, especially from Damon at his most relatably chunky, Davis at her most serenely commanding, Bateman (alternately quippy and disarmingly sincere), and Affleck, who between this and 2021’s “The Last Duel” might deserve an honorary acting Oscar for being willing to make himself look utterly ridiculous for the greater good.

As a director, he’s also willing to indulge the audience’s craving for pleasure, whether by way of “Air’s” thoroughly rewarding plot or delicious period-piece touches, which include an ’80s-tastic soundtrack and the re-creation of Nike’s Beaverton, Ore., headquarters, where smoking corners and sundae bars are the order of the long-bygone day. (He also wisely shoots the actor playing Jordan only from behind, avoiding inevitable and distracting comparisons.)

Spouting his own aphorism, at one point Sonny reminds his colleagues that “you’re remembered for the rules you break.” Affleck doesn’t break rules with “Air” as much as restore them, obeying principles that have seemed mortally endangered in recent years — about sound structure, recognizably human characters, satisfying catharsis, authentic but not overreaching depth. The modest but gratifying gifts of “Air” lie in its seeming effortlessness, reassuring viewers that a good movie can still be a good story, well told. It’s a movie that shoots and scores. And, miraculously, it turns out that’s still enough.

R. At area theaters. Contains strong language throughout. 112 minutes.

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8 Great Movie Review Sites For Parents With Kids In Mind

Fancy an evening watching movies as a family? Let's explore a few of the best movie review sites for kids so that you can choose the best go-to site for your family's needs.

You're ready to put The Wolverine into the DVD player, then suddenly you wonder if this movie will be a problem for your 8-year-old. Well, will it?

If you're a parent with a family who loves movies, you've probably realised that you need to be able to get some reliable information on those movies before you show them to the family. But navigating the various movie sites to find child-friendly titles can be a chore.

Today we'll explore a few of the best movie review sites for kids so that you can choose the best go-to site for your family's needs. We'll also show you the best ways to get drip-fed some useful information about new movie releases too. Then you can line up your Netflix list and get watching!

Common Sense Media

The Common Sense Media site has a unique way of showcasing their film reviews. Latest releases are shown in a list just with a poster, quick one-sentence blurb, age rating, and star rating. If you click through, you get to see a short video review of the film, featuring a few short clips from the film with a voice-over review. This really is great, as you can see for yourself the sorts of characters that are in the film. The reviews are also very comprehensive, letting you know if there is any educational value as well as covering the usual parental worries - and they're not afraid to tell you if they just don't like it much! If you can't watch the video for whatever reason, you can usually click through again to a text version.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7eQ3UqV4cs4

The site is easy to browse with best of lists and the like. They also cover books, games, music, and more. Common Sense Media can be followed on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube , or via their mobile apps .

Plugged In is a family review site for movies, TV series, games, books, and music. It is seriously well worth a visit if you want to be certain about the suitability of any given entertainment for your child.

The reviews are very detailed, and categorised into positive elements, violent content, sexual content, and more. Their summary icons are limited in order to be simple to understand. This site is available to follow on Facebook, Twitter, or via their Focus On The Family apps.

Movie Guide

Movie Guide is focused on movies and reviews in general, and doesn't set out to have family-focused reviews. However, it has summary pages with information that families would need to make a decision. Each review page has an easy-to-read chart showing language, violence, sex, and nudity levels. It also starts the review with a very brief paragraph on potential issues families might have with the film content.

Follow Movie Guide reviews via Facebook, Twitter, Google+, RSS, or on YouTube .

Kids In Mind

Kids In Mind have very wordy reviews, focusing on three major areas of concern for parents: Sex & Nudity, Violence & Gore, and Profanity. Each film has an easy-reference chart showing the severity of content in these areas, but the review proper has a lot more information available.

Follow Kids In Mind on Facebook or via their iPhone or iPad app. Also, iPad users should check out our guide to  watching videos on the iPad  and Android users should read up on our list of  tablets you would let your kids use .

Box Office Mom

The Box Office Mom site appeals to parents as it gets straight to the answers you really want to know. In the full review, each of the following points is also elaborated on, so you can find out more detail if you're still unsure.

Each film has entries for:

• Rating (Her star-rating guide)
• Release Date
• MPAA Rating
• Best Age Group
• Sexual Content
• Violent Content
• Crude or Profane Language
• Drugs and Alcohol Content
• Will it Appeal to Kids/Teens?

She seems to cover any and all movies that teenagers will bug their parents about. So, there are a few R rated movies in the mix, some of which get a big NO, while others could possibly be viewed by mature 17-year-olds.

You can also browse the site by genre, box-office favourites, or DVD favourites. If you want updates on her new reviews, you can subscribe using RSS, Facebook, and Twitter.

Kids Pick Flicks

The Kids Pick Flicks site has a good point: Why should kids care what a 50-year-old man has to say about movies? To turn that around, they offer a site full of reviews by kids and teenagers.

This, I feel, is an awesome way to find out for sure if your kids will even be interested in certain films. It's also a good way to get your kids interested in reading about movies -- or maybe even reviewing them themselves. In fact, many of the teenage writers on this site seem to have a real talent for writing movie reviews, and could easily line up a good career in it later, I'm sure.

The site is searchable or browsable by DVD reviews or more recent movie reviews. It's worth adding to your RSS feeds.

Raising Children Movie Reviews

The Raising Children site has a lot more than movie reviews, but their movie review section is definitely worth a mention. When browsing their list of movies, you can see prominent icons which let you know what sort of movie it is and what age groups it is recommended for.

The symbols make it easy to see:

• Frightening scenes
• Inappropriate language
• Disturbing, upsetting or confusing scenes
• Sexual references or sex scenes
• Violence or scary scenes
• Age recommendations: Not recommended for / parental guidance recommended for / or suitable for.

As Raising children is an Australian site, all recommendations have been made in conjunction with the Australian Council on Children and the Media. Obviously, clicking through to the film will give you more information on the story, themes, violence, disturbing scenes, sex scenes, product placement, coarse language and ideas to discuss with your children. The last section could be really valuable as a learning tool for your family.

The Dove Foundation

The Dove Foundation covers both movies and books, aiming to showcase the sorts of things that are good for family viewing. Each review comes with a small graph that shows the severity of each of the major worry points for parents: Sex, language, violence, drugs, nudity or other issues. The reviews themselves are brief and focus on what may be worrisome for the parents. The site looks a little outdated, but the content is still very good!

Movies With Kids

As a parent, I wholeheartedly recommend using all of these sites to make decisions. Some of them will obviously gel more with your family's needs more than others, but each of them offer great information about the films out today. I suggest downloading all of the apps and following all of the Facebook pages, as this way you'll get a drip-feed of useful information about the latest films and will have an app on hand to check when you need it.

If your kids also like to play Roblox, make sure you help them stay away from free Robux scams , too.

Image Credits: Little girl Via Shutterstock