I suggest that 3 year olds should not go see Nanny McPhee because it is scary at the first part of the movie when she hits her cane. It's actually a good movie.

I didn't like it. It was boring.

I liked the donkey that smiled like a lady and the grandmother thought it was a child.

When I leave the theater in a great mood, I know that was a movie worth seeing – and Nanny McPhee left me skipping down the theater aisle. It's a fairy tale about father overwhelmed by his responsibilities to his seven children several months after his wife dies and the nanny that puts them all straight with five lessons.

Nanny McPhee is the anti-Mary Poppins whose ugliness is the physical representation of the children’s ugly behavior. This is my one cause for concern: while I get the symbolism, the idea that as the children become better behaved, their nanny becomes more attractive doesn’t sit well with me in a society where Americans are obsessed with beauty.

Another nail biter is a scene where the children sabotage their father on a date - as he tries to combat their pranks, he winds up pushing his body onto the woman physically which first she relishes but ultimately marches off.

One magical element in the story is that it’s not just the children who benefit from the lessons, their well intentioned by burdened father receives a lesson as well. This theme seems to be growing in children’s movies (Chicken Little) where parents are flawed. Parents at the root of a child’s bad behavior is a lesson we’ve been hearing a lot of lately from nannies – whether it’s the “SuperNanny,” “Nanny 911” or told most magically by Nanny McPhee. But Nanny doesn’t end the show by pointing a finger, she teaches responsibility regardless of circumstances – and that’s a lesson we could all use. For children ages 5 and older.