Unaccompanied Minors
MPAA Rating: PG for mild rude humor and language
Released in Theaters: Dec. 8, 2006
Holiday travel can be fun, but if something goes wrong and you’re an adult, you can likely do something about it: cancel a flight, book a hotel, or rent a car. If you’re a kid traveling without your parents, dealing with airport problems may not be so easy.
In this movie, it’s Christmas Eve and a huge blizzard shuts down the airport, stranding travelers. En route to their dad’s house, Spencer (Dyllan Christopher), and his little sister, Katherine (Dominique Saldana), who are traveling without their parents, are ushered to an area for “unaccompanied minors”. It’s basically a holding cell for stranded kids from all over the country. And it’s completely nuts in there! Kids are going wild, and there are cupcakes and juice boxes flying all over the place. Spencer makes a run for freedom along with four other kids who couldn’t be more different if they tried. There’s spoiled rich girl Grace (Gina Mantegna); trailer-park tomboy Donna (Quinn Shephard); academic overachiever Charlie (Tyler James Christopher from “Everybody Hates Chris”); and comic-book geek Timothy “Beef” Wellington (Brett Kelly from Bad Santa).
Picture these kids racing through the airport with every security guard hot on their trail. Not only that — they have to outwit the airport’s passenger relations manager. He’s not exactly kid-friendly. All he wants is a vacation, but instead, he’s stranded in an airport with a bunch of irritating kids. Wilmer Valderrama (Fez on “That 70’s Show”) is the manager’s reluctant assistant who’s really just a big kid himself. He learns something important about himself while chasing the kids.
Meanwhile, Katherine and the other minors are herded into a nearby hotel to wait out the storm. Spencer isn’t with those kids, but he’s determined to reunite with his little sister and give her a good Christmas. So, he enlists the help of his kid-posse to make that happen. They get into all kinds of trouble — rampaging through baggage chutes, crawling through air ducts, and being chased down a snowy hillside in a canoe!
The kids turn Christmas at the airport into utter chaos and prove you don’t have to be related to be a family. They start out rude and disrespectful, but something happens along the way. All in all, this is a funny, goofy movie that doesn’t require a whole lot of brain power.
