I think a distinction needs to be drawn between disliking a narrative, or finding a film 'empty' (both of which are obviously fine, and down to individual taste) and claiming that there is no narrative at all (which is simply preposterous in the case of all the titles listed above). And if we are going to talk about 'thinness', the narrative in Anderson's film is considerably more developed than the one found in Dahl's novella…

On the point of the stretched narrative… is Fantastic Mr Fox "… symptomatic of the painful death of the art of narrative cinema."? (to quote Mark Kermode talking about films of computer games)

Zombieland could also go in that category, however it mostly got away with it by being so much fun. It's almost totally empty though.

The Ice Age films are completely devoid of narrative… they're just a series of events! That's not a film!

To be honest, I was thinking she'd be bored stupid (Existentialism gags – really?) but she wasn't.

It's very much a Wes Anderson film as opposed to a 'kids' film but his 'style' would appear to crossover. The animation is wonderful and, I guess, kids aren't as stupid as Hollywood would have us believe.

Great fun, but I agree that the narrative is stretched very thin. Still, narrative doesn't seem to be that important these days, did you see Zombieland?

I think if you're an adult who likes WA movies… chances are your kids will too.

(Rushmore was huge in our house… still is…)

The only weak element was the relatively straightforward story line. Tough to sustain an hour and a half, but the strength of all the other elements more than made up for it.

Fantastic

Treating children a little bit like adults is part of how they become little adults – and they are capable of understanding a lot more than we often give them credit for. It could even be argued that all Wes Anderson's films are kids' films, on the basis that they all feature protagonists who are arrested, if not utterly infantilised, in their development. In any case, frankly I can imagine a ten-year-old watching – and enjoying – Rushmore, especially were it too presented in stop-motion animation… Maybe not all ten-year-olds, but then I know a good many adults who cannot watch or enjoy Wes Anderson films either.

Just because the film is relatively sophisticated doesn't mean children will be bored by it, I get fed up of the endless films that talk down to kids as if they're idiots, as if somehow throwaway gags and wall to wall slapstick are all their little brains can comprehend (see pretty much any Studio Ghibli release to see how intelligent animated films for children can and should be done).

Fantastic Mr Fox has action, a good storyline, it's fast-paced enough to keep hold of a short attention span, and if the kids don't necessarily get all the jokes there's always the failsafe cute animals to fall back on.. How can you go wrong?

Can you imagine a 10 year-old watching Rushmore? Exactly. Fantastic Mr Fox totally plays laughs to 30 something critics but kids will be bored stiff.

Take your kids to see Up or Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs instead this half-term.