I would give this a PG-16 and the musical ONCE a PG-14

Rating: 7/10 (25 August 2007)

Although there is much to enjoy as far as shocking and jolting Narrative twists and turns that the director of DISTURBIA takes us on, it is ultimately a bit trivial in a bigger scheme of things. I understand that it was a project that got shelved and put into production after a long wait. The edginess of it all does OK with its updating of REAR WINDOW (the Hitchcock thriller about a crippled voyeuristic photographer in a stuffy NYC apartment.) DISTURBIA (2007) came out this spring around Easter/Spring Vacation in the close vicinity of a real-life drama that received publicity in the St. Louis area where a stalker-pedophile was trying to "warehouse" teenage boys and the seemingly "normal neighbor" was foiled in his last kidnap only by an observant fellow student on a school bus who reported to police the relevant clue about the make and color of car that was being driven to crate the victim to his "lair". There are comedic moments but also some gross-out ones that apparently enthralled a wide teen audience this spring ahead of the crowds awaiting SPIDER-MAN 3 in May. Due to the viciousness of certain actions of this film's villain I would rank it not as a PG limiting it to 13-year-olds but to 16-year-olds and older. That might also prove a bit of a severe lesson about driving while distracted by cell phone well above the speed limit. A much better film for those of the plus-14 age ranges is the UK musical-reality based feature film taking place in Dublin streets, a music store, a recording studio, and low-rent quarters titled ONCE (currently in theatres Summer 2007). After its R-rated language of the first moments, viewers must admire ONCE for its long-enduring and hummable soundtrack - display of musical virtuoso on the pop music end of things. I evaluate DISTURBIA at the level of 7 while I highly regard the suspense classic REAR WINDOW (1954) as a 10 here at Internet Movie Database.