AS THE father of four children, I’ve had to sit through my fair share of films with them and have come to the conclusion that my goodness there’s a lot of bad children’s films out there!

Every school holiday period brings its predictable children’s fare – usually computer animated, featuring celebrities providing the voices for talking animals, garden gnomes, angry birds, vampires, emojis…take your pick.

They’re generally shiny, colourful, visually engaging, but are frequently let down by a poor story.

A film costs an enormous amount of money to make and market, so why does it often seem that cost-cutting has happened at the scriptwriting stage?

It’s hard to imagine a team of writers who value their craft being happy signing off scripts for films that are, at best, decidedly average.

Storylines are predictable, characters are two dimensional, and any humour usually cheap and unsophisticated.

“But it’s for kids!” one might argue. Indeed, but that doesn’t mean a film should underestimate the intelligence of its audience, no matter what their age.

And then there’s the issue of material that really shouldn’t find its way into a film for children. A cartoon garden gnome exclaims: “What the f…ertalizer!” Who is that line aimed at? Would a child realise it’s a play on a rude word, or is a parent supposed to explain why it’s ‘funny’?

Children deserve better than this. If parents didn’t take their children to poor films then studios would stop making them. Parents need to vote with their feet.

I am grateful nowadays when my youngest children see the trailers for some of these films and exclaim: “That looks terrible!”

It’s not all bad news though. In the column next week, I’ll share my recommendations for some really excellent films for family audiences.