The Last Chance Detectives: Escape from Fire Lake

This is a good family adventure with a message that never gets preachy. The adventure is just suspenseful enough for kids, without getting too frightening. Your kids will be yelling at the screen to tell the kid in peril (Mike) what he should do. You might just catch yourself doing the same time. Film has the obvious "made for commercial break" pauses, but it wasn't too annoying. The bad guy has a very stereotypically evil laugh which my husband and I found a bit cheesy, but the kids we watched it with thought it was just the right laugh for a bad guy to have.

The kids picked up on how the sidekick may not have been a bad guy, but he was making bad choices by following along the evil guy because it was easier than standing up for himself. I figure the value of the conversation that we had on that point was worth the price of the DVD all on it's own! Our family really enjoyed it and my daughter is already begging me to find the other two films!