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The Big Trip

A goofy stork mistakenly delivers a baby panda to the wrong door. A bear, a moose, a tiger and a rabbit set on an arduous but fun filled adventure through wilderness to return the panda to i... Read all A goofy stork mistakenly delivers a baby panda to the wrong door. A bear, a moose, a tiger and a rabbit set on an arduous but fun filled adventure through wilderness to return the panda to its rightful home. A goofy stork mistakenly delivers a baby panda to the wrong door. A bear, a moose, a tiger and a rabbit set on an arduous but fun filled adventure through wilderness to return the panda to its rightful home.

• Vasiliy Rovenskiy
• Natalya Nilova
• Billy Frolick
• Pavel Vinogradov
• Pauly Shore
• Danila Medvedev
• 47 User reviews
• 4 Critic reviews

Top cast 28

• Cameo Role Characters
• (as Jonathan Alan Salway)
• (as Bernard Carl Jacobsen)

• (as Katherine Marie Rommel)
• (as Brodey Evan Milburn)
• Mole Stevie Rai

• Pelican Duke
• Amur the Tiger
• (as Timothy John Joseph Sell)

• All cast & crew
• Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

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Did you know

• Trivia Pauly Shore was allegedly paid close to five million to appear in this film, primarily due to his lingering popularity in places like Uzbekistan, Yemen, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
• Connections Followed by Big Trip 2: Special Delivery (2022)

User reviews 47

• cynet-52332
• Jan 31, 2021
• How long is The Big Trip? Powered by Alexa
• April 27, 2019 (Russia)
• Gấu Trúc Về Nhà
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• See more company credits at IMDbPro

Technical specs

• Runtime 1 hour 20 minutes

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Big Trip, The

Short takes

Not suitable under 5; parental guidance to 8 (violence, scary scenes)

This topic contains:

• overall comments and recommendations
• details of classification and consumer advice lines for Big Trip, The
• a review of Big Trip, The completed by the Australian Council on Children and the Media (ACCM) on 10 March 2020 .

Overall comments and recommendations

About the movie.

This section contains details about the movie, including its classification by the Australian Government Classification Board and the associated consumer advice lines. Other classification advice (OC) is provided where the Australian film classification is not available.

ACCM review

This review of the movie contains the following information:

• a synopsis of the story
• use of violence
• material that may scare or disturb children
• product placement
• sexual references
• nudity and sexual activity
• use of substances
• coarse language
• the movie’s message

A synopsis of the story

Mic Mic (voice of Pauley Shore) is a grumpy grizzly bear who is quite content to live alone on the edge of the forest. When an inept stork accidentally delivers a baby panda to his gate, Mic Mic decides to set off in search of the panda’s rightful parents. As luck should have it but much to Mic Mic’s displeasure, an unfortunate rabbit named Oscar (voice of Drake Bell), who seems to encounter no end of trouble, decides to tag along. The unlikely pair are soon joined by Duke (voice of Stephen Thomas Ochsner) a flamboyant pelican who can’t stop talking; Amur (voice of Joseph Sell) a poetic tiger; and Janus (voice of Danila Medvedev) a lone wolf who journeys through life constantly paralysed by fear. As the group journey in search of the panda’s parents, they must keep the baby safe from the perils they encounter, particularly from an evil and dangerous snake bent on revenge. Soon the unlikely companions come to realise there is strength in numbers, that courage can come even from the most fearful and that friendships can be formed through adversity and adventure.

Themes info

Children and adolescents may react adversely at different ages to themes of crime, suicide, drug and alcohol dependence, death, serious illness, family breakdown, death or separation from a parent, animal distress or cruelty to animals, children as victims, natural disasters and racism. Occasionally reviews may also signal themes that some parents may simply wish to know about.

Separation of a baby panda from its parents, revenge, overcoming fear.

Use of violence info

Research shows that children are at risk of learning that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution when violence is glamourised, performed by an attractive hero, successful, has few real life consequences, is set in a comic context and / or is mostly perpetrated by male characters with female victims, or by one race against another.

Repeated exposure to violent content can reinforce the message that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution. Repeated exposure also increases the risks that children will become desensitised to the use of violence in real life or develop an exaggerated view about the prevalence and likelihood of violence in their own world.

There is some violence in this movie including:

• A scary snake is about to eat a wild pig who appears to be hypnotised.
• The snake chases monkeys through the forest attempting to attack and harm them. Just when it looks like he is about to strike them he bites his own tail instead. The monkeys fly through the air and crash to the ground.
• A large panda grabs the snake by the neck and roughly throws him into the trees. The snake threatens revenge as he slithers away.
• A rocket, also Oscar’s house, explodes with Oscar inside it. Bits of debris fall from the sky punching holes in Mic Mic’s boat and upsetting his bee hives. Oscar crashes to the ground unhurt.
• A stork reminisces about a botched delivery and it was implied that a horse father, upset that it clearly wasn’t his offspring, trampled a baby zebra to death.
• A stork is hit by flying shrapnel, gets a bucket on his head and crashes into a tree.
• Oscar falls through the roof of Mic Mic’s raft.
• Mic Mic repeatedly slams his head into a wooden pole when the baby panda cries.
• The snake throws Oscar against a huge rock and Oscar lies there unconscious. The snake wraps himself around Mic Mic; he smashes through rocks blasting bits of stone to the side as he goes. Janus joins the fight and they manage to tie the snake to a tree, into a knot and fling him into the air. He lands in the distance with a huge crash.

Material that may scare or disturb children

Under five info.

Children under five are most likely to be frightened by scary visual images, such as monsters, physical transformations.

In addition to the above-mentioned violent scenes, there are some scenes in this movie that could scare or disturb children under the age of five, including the following:

• The movie opens with a sinister voice hissing in the forest. It is followed by an intense action scene where a creepy, evil, snake tries to eat a wild pig, three monkeys break the hypnotising spell and the snake chases them through the forest repeatedly trying to attack them. The scene is loud, intense and suspenseful and is likely to be too much, too soon, for very young viewers.
• A wolf is shown running through the darkened woods, clearly terrified of numerous sounds that it hears. Suddenly a sinister voice begins to echo through the darkness telling the wolf that it is his own fear. The wolf collapses in terror as the voice keeps whispering all about the things he fears. Eventually the wolf stands up and runs off begging the voice to get out of his head.

Aged five to eight info

Children aged five to eight will also be frightened by scary visual images and will also be disturbed by depictions of the death of a parent, a child abandoned or separated from parents, children or animals being hurt or threatened and / or natural disasters.

In addition to the above-mentioned violent scenes and scary visual images, there are some scenes in this movie that could scare or disturb children aged five to eight, including the following:

• Mic Mic’s raft gets into dangerous waters. It begins to hit rocks in the rapids of a river and the characters start to panic. Mic Mic is shouting and the baby panda is crying. Ultimately the raft hits some large rocks and explodes into pieces. The characters are uninjured but the scene is intense and may distress some children.
• There is a creepy rock cave, with a snake mouth and fiery flames. Inside the evil snake is holding the baby panda hostage. The baby is crying and clearly very scared. The snake is preparing to cook the baby and hisses at it not to cry as then it won’t taste good. The snake is interrupted before it can do any harm but the creepiness of the snake and the fact that the baby panda is cowering in distress may disturb some viewers.

Aged eight to thirteen info

Children aged eight to thirteen are most likely to be frightened by realistic threats and dangers, violence or threat of violence and / or stories in which children are hurt or threatened.

• Nothing further of concern.

Product placement

The following products are displayed or used in this movie:

• There is a verbal reference to Dolce and Gabbana.

Sexual references

• None noted.

Nudity and sexual activity

Use of substances, coarse language.

There is some coarse language in this movie, including:

• Infrequent name-calling such as “Blabbermouth,” “Knucklehead,” “Pathetic Loser,” “Fluff head,” “Stupid,” “Clown” and “Idiot.”

In a nutshell

The Big Trip is a Russian, animated adventure with good graphics and quirky characters. While this film is aimed at a family audience, the violence and scary scenes warrant it unsuitable for children under 5 and parental guidance is recommended to 8. Furthermore, the fairly predictable plot may lack interest for older children. The film will therefore, likely be most enjoyed by children around nine.

The main messages from this movie are to believe in yourself, to complete what you start and that friendships can be found in the most unlikely places.

Values in this movie that parents may wish to reinforce with their children include:

• Determination
• Helpfulness

This movie could also give parents the opportunity to discuss with their children attitudes and behaviours, and their real-life consequences, such as:

• Anger management issues.
• The impact of blaming others and picking on their faults while ignoring your own.
• Believing that you don’t need friends and that you are better off on your own without help from anyone.

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Children and Media Australia (CMA) is a registered business name of the Australian Council on Children and the Media (ACCM).

CMA provides reviews, research and advocacy to help children thrive in a digital world.

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The Big Trip

Cast & crew.

Pauly Shore

Danila Medvedev

Jonathan Salway

Cameo Role Characters

Bernard Carl Jacobsen

• KIDS & FAMILY

Uninspired animated adventure has quirky characters, peril.

Information

© 2019 Front Row Filmed Entertainment

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The Big Trip

• Common Sense Media Renee Schonfeld Uninspired animated adventure has quirky characters, peril.

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Running on empty.

• Common Sense Says
• Parents Say 0 Reviews
• Kids Say 0 Reviews

Common Sense Media Review

Dark, mature romcom asks big questions, comes up empty.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that Running on Empty is a dark romantic comedy about a mortician named Mort (Keir Gilchrist) who learns he has less than a year to live. It has mature sexual situations, plus graphic sex-related dialogue, kissing, flirting, and revealing outfits. Language is also strong, with use of…

Why Age 15+?

Very brief image of a woman thrusting behind a man (nothing explicit shown, but

Several uses of "f--k," plus "motherf----r," "s--t," "bulls--t," "t-ts," "a--hol

A man forces a woman up against the wall and grabs her throat. Characters fight,

Wine with dinner; one character keeps pouring more wine, despite her partner app

Mention of Trader Joe's.

Any Positive Content?

Addresses death, arguing that death doesn't really matter and shouldn't be scary

Mort is sort of a "lost" character who's searching for happiness. But he never d

Largely focused on a White man; the women in his life are mainly there to suppor

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Very brief image of a woman thrusting behind a man (nothing explicit shown, but it's a visual reference to an earlier verbal mention of "pegging," i.e., a woman wearing a sex toy and penetrating a man). Kissing. A character meets a sex worker in a bar; she lets him feel her breasts through her dress and invites him back to her place, changes into lingerie, suggests oral sex, straddles him, and gives him a lap dance, which is interrupted. After a date, one character invites another home; they kiss, she pulls him inside, and the scene cuts to her lying in bed and him getting dressed (sex is implied). A woman in a bikini slowly climbs out of a swimming pool. Man shown shirtless. Frequent graphic sex-related dialogue. Sexual gesture.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Several uses of "f--k," plus "motherf----r," "s--t," "bulls--t," "t-ts," "a--hole," "p---y," "bitch," "son of a bitch," "ass," "dumbass," "balls," "butt," "crap," "Jesus Christ" and "oh God" (as exclamations), "pissed," "scumbag," "whore," "vagina," "blow job," and "hummer."

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Violence & Scariness

A man forces a woman up against the wall and grabs her throat. Characters fight, with kicks in the groin, punching, and someone getting hit in the face with a bicycle. A person falls to their death; crumpled body shown. A character is struck by a car; bloody wounds, seeping blood puddle. Deaths. Character thrown on ground. Guns are shown/brandished. Physical threat. Reference to someone being killed by a drunk driver. Reference to necrophilia.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Wine with dinner; one character keeps pouring more wine, despite her partner appearing upset with her. Social drinking (shots, beer, wine). Vaping and cigarette smoking. Reference to someone being killed by a drunk driver.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Products & Purchases

Positive messages.

Addresses death, arguing that death doesn't really matter and shouldn't be scary. These assertions come through in dialogue; characters never really seem to think very hard about them. The existence of a service in which characters can find out their death day raises the thoughtful question: Would you do the same?

Positive Role Models

Mort is sort of a "lost" character who's searching for happiness. But he never does much that's admirable, and supporting characters are pretty thinly drawn.

Diverse Representations

Largely focused on a White man; the women in his life are mainly there to support him or give him some kind of experience. Most other characters are White as well. In supporting cast, Black actor Jay Pharoah plays a driver working at the funeral home who appears in a few scenes, and Black actors (Isaac C. Singleton Jr. and Lisa Yaro) play a pimp and a sex worker. During a dating montage, Michelle Farrah Huang appears as an unsympathetic woman of unspecified Asian descent. Writer-director Daniel Andre was born in Mexico.

Did we miss something on diversity? Suggest an update.

Parents need to know that Running on Empty is a dark romantic comedy about a mortician named Mort ( Keir Gilchrist ) who learns he has less than a year to live. It has mature sexual situations, plus graphic sex-related dialogue, kissing, flirting, and revealing outfits. Language is also strong, with use of words including "f--k," "motherf----r," "s--t," "t-ts," "a--hole," "p---y," "bitch," "oh God," and "ass." Characters die, and there are bloody wounds and seeping blood, as well as gun threat, physical threat (a man forces a woman up against a wall and grabs her throat), a mangled corpse, fighting, kicking, a character getting hit by a car, a fatal fall, and more. There's social drinking (shots, beers, wine, etc.), and one character appears to be drinking too much wine with dinner. There's also occasional vaping and smoking and a reference to a fatal drunk driving accident. Lucy Hale co-stars. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

Where to Watch

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Parent and Kid Reviews

• Parents say

There aren't any parent reviews yet. Be the first to review this title.

What's the Story?

In RUNNING ON EMPTY, Mortimer "Mort" Mortensen ( Keir Gilchrist ) works in a funeral home with his Uncle Barry ( Jim Gaffigan ) and is forever clad in a neat black suit. Along with his fianc ée, Nicole ( Francesca Eastwood ), Mort gets a Life Day Count test and discovers that he has less than a year left to live. Nicole leaves him, and he begins a series of misadventures. Mort meets a woman in a bar, which leads to an unsavory run-in with an angry pimp, Simon (Rhys Coiro), who demands increasing amounts of money for a perceived wrong. And a dating service leads to strange encounters with various women, one of whom even steals Mort's jacket and wallet. But when Kate ( Lucy Hale ), who works shooting videos for the dating service, befriends him, things start to look up again ... at least for a while.

Is It Any Good?

Presumably starting off as a dark comedy before morphing into a rather routine—and unfunny—romcom, this odd, bland movie seems to have been built from bits of other movies with minimal effort. Running on Empty focuses on a character whose name literally means "death" and is set partially in a funeral home where the corpses are posed doing lifelike things; it seems to want to follow in a kind of Harold and Maude mode, but its disaffected tone makes everything seem pointless. And when it suddenly jettisons this attempt at dark comedy and Mort tries to learn how to live, it becomes just ... regular. The characters seem like cutouts, including the kind of goofy supporters (Gaffigan mostly makes crude sex references) and free-wheeling outsider girl (Hale) we've seen hundreds of times before. (SNL's Jay Pharoah , who plays the funeral home's driver and appears in a just couple of scenes, gets the movie's only real laughs, especially in a scene where he helps suspend a lady's corpse into a hang-gliding pose.)

The movie also resorts to several uninspired montages to shove its story along. Its biggest problem, however, is probably Mort himself. Forever clad in his suit and with his pouty, innocent expression that rarely changes, he doesn't seem real or relatable. The title is a further suggestion of the movie's general sense of lethargy. Running on Empty is also the name of a classic Sidney Lumet movie , and it means nothing here, other than to hint that the movie, indeed, has run out of gas.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about Running on Empty 's violence . How did it make you feel? Was it exciting? Shocking? Were you expecting that kind of content in a romantic comedy?

How is sex depicted? Is casual sex glamorized? Parents, talk to your teens about your own values regarding sex and relationships.

Does Simon bully others? How is bullying handled in this story? Are there other approaches?

If you could, would you choose to find out your death date? Why, or why not?

Movie Details

• In theaters : August 9, 2024
• On DVD or streaming : August 27, 2024
• Cast : Keir Gilchrist , Lucy Hale , Francesca Eastwood
• Director : Daniel Andre
• Inclusion Information : Latino directors, Mexican directors, Female actors
• Studio : Lionsgate
• Genre : Comedy
• Run time : 91 minutes
• MPAA rating : R
• MPAA explanation : language and sexual content
• Last updated : September 3, 2024

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

Suggest an Update

What to watch next.

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Romantic comedies, goofy comedy movies to watch with tweens and teens.

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Big Trip 2: Special Delivery Reviews

This cheap-looking movie isn’t worth seeing in any case.

Full Review | Original Score: 1/5 | Apr 10, 2023

If the little ones are behaving badly, use this like a cinematic naughty step – a threat to dangle over them. One more step out of line … and I’ll march you straight to the cinema to watch this.

Full Review | Original Score: 1/5 | Apr 4, 2023

Viewers okay with cartoon violence might enjoy some of the jokes and feel invested in the journey of a baby bear finding its way home and appreciate seeing the teamwork among the characters.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Jan 11, 2023

The philosopher's guide to fighting your Big Trip fears

Apr 12, 2018 • 6 min read

The ‘Big Trip’ has long been a rite of passage, but for many budding travellers – even those blessed with the bravado of youth – the thought of months on the road can be enough to make you unpack your bags and retire to the couch.

In sickness and health, for richer or poorer, travel has its ups and downs, but the right mindset can weather all storms. Here we call on various schools of philosophy to ease our most common anxieties about that epic stint on the road.

Loneliness… is a temporary state

Face the reality: you will get homesick. You will miss your friends and your family (well, some of them), even your cat and your local coffee . But according to existentialists such as Jean-Paul Sartre, loneliness is part of being human, so you aren't really that alone after all. Yet loneliness is different to active solitude, which can refresh, rejuvenate and reinspire creativity, so why not get off the grid to somewhere like  Bhutan  or the Kimberley?

Excessive use of social media can exacerbate loneliness on the road as you’re never here or there; instead make fixed times to talk with the people back home and make those interactions count. Consider staying in a hostel with an active social scene. Or even keep a daily schedule, so you have a sense of achievement and order at the end of each day. You could also base yourself in one place for a few weeks to engage in volunteer work or join a sporting club – anything to help you feel part of a purposeful community.

Sickness… can happen anywhere

The naturalist position on biology holds that sickness is a kind of mechanical deficiency. Maurice Merleau-Ponty argues that forced convalescence 'reduces your phenomenal field', so that when bedridden you experience only what you can see and hear (and smell) around you. But rather than thinking of this as inhibiting your adventures, you could use that bout of tummy trouble in Bali  or  Delhi as time to reflect on all the amazing stuff you've been through on your journey – and all the not-so-amazing stuff that has been through you.

Still, getting sick is never the preferred path. Obvious precautions include investing in decent travel insurance, filtering your water, avoiding dodgy food and snappy dogs, wearing insect repellent and heeding local advice – but in the end your body will let you know it's travelling, so listen to it. Be mindful not to buy into too much negative hysteria about foreign medical services. You can find some world-class doctors in surprising corners of the world, often at a fraction of the cost of home. When you arrive in a new place, it can be helpful to identify how best to access medical services, and most developed cities will have plenty of English-speaking doctors to assist you.

Safety… is a risk assessment

The Bayesian ideal of rationality says that all statements about the world should have a definite probability attached. For example: ‘air travel is  x  times safer than car travel’ and ' Switzerland  is y times safer for travellers than  South Africa '   (unless you ski).   Extend this logic to help you make a slew of safety-first decisions. Sleeper trains in less-developed regions can be notorious for theft, so take precautions with your belongings. Skirt that dark alley for the slightly longer, well-lit route back to your hotel or hostel. Geopolitical 'hotspots' do not mean places that are 'in' right now. And know your seasons, especially in the tropics where the wet season can kill a decent perm.

Much of risk assessment comes in the planning stages. Consult your government’s own travel advice and start your journey in relatively safe destinations to get your bearings. As your appetite for risk increases, also increase your due diligence. Having ‘done’ Singapore doesn’t mean you’re necessarily ready to hike an active volcano.

Financial security… is a prison

Henry Thoreau was one of many who praised the virtues of thriftiness and frugality. In essence, the mantra of the contemporary anti-consumerist movement is 'don't buy, do'. You've likely saved for this trip by committing to do stuff, rather than have stuff. Apply a similar logic when on the road. Figure out a weekly budget so you don't become a bore, but be realistic about the price of fish. Don't travel the  Trans-Siberian Railway  on $5 a day just because your uncle did. That was 1985, when Back to the Future was a box office smash and the whole world dreamed of hoverboards.

Practice keeping a budget for a month or so before you leave, so you get a better handle on the ins and outs – including itemising your expenses at the end of each day and allowing for unexpected costs. Another way to overcome the money hurdle is to keep some cash under the mattress (or in a bank account) for when you return home. Arriving home with your finances firmly in the red may overshadow the wonderful adventure you’ve just had. You could also pick up a few dollars along the way through a working-holiday visa or by legitimate cash-in-hand work, depending, of course, on each country’s labour laws.

FOMO… is all in your head

A product of the digital age, FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) is essentially an anxiety about how we spend our time compared to others. Socrates' famous maxim ‘know thyself’ is a handy general rule to help deal with FOMO. Perhaps a more practical strategy is to detox from social media, but even that's far easier said than done, especially as travel affords so much downtime perfectly suited for mindlessly scrolling.

Still, you can at least curtail your usage, especially a few weeks either side of your heavily documented farewell. And don't worry, you won't be short of a social event once you commit wholeheartedly to the GBWOT (Great Big World Out There), especially if that world is the dance floors of  Ibiza  or  Miami . Snap! Do spare a thought for the stay-at-home suckers, though – FOMO is much stronger for those left behind.

Life plan? Let go!

Our Zen friends wax lyrical about the perils of 'future tripping', of prematurely anticipating and subsequently overthinking the imagined future. Your propensity to plan your life out in great detail means you are by default avoiding the present – and in the present lies the truth. If you’re worried that that hot internship, apprenticeship or potential courtship may be sailing from your reach while you drift around the globe, then try spilling the wind from your sails and slow down. Much like Thich Nhat Hahn implores from his meditation retreat in southwestern France : 'walk as if you are kissing the Earth with your feet'. Because before you know it, you’ll be back on home soil!

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