Seven Up!

Amazing concept, but the first entry in this series is difficult to follow. Do you know how hard it is for a poor viewer like me to keep track of 14 kids in 39 minutes with no nametags/captions? But it's obvious that great things will come from this series. I can't wait to see the rest.

Good start to the series, would like to see how it progresses through the years

Does one rate this based upon the first impression or based on how it would play later, after you've caught up with the series? I'll go with the first impression which was: Solid but nothing more. And, by the way, most of the footage from this is also part of '7 Plus 7', and a lot of it will be repeated throughout the series... so I feel like it would do no harm to simply skip 'Seven Up!'.

I feel like this could only get better but these kids are, like all kids, pretty annoying. Too short to really say anything interesting and not very insightful into the mind of a kid, especially when you realize they are all trying to talk like adults which is super weird. Cool concept but the first one doesn't offer much.

Love the concept. 30 minutes and it seems like great things are to come.

Awesome. Take a really smart concept, add adorable British kids and you have a mega score from me. I can't get enough of the "Say I don't like greens...well I don't...and say she says 'well you have to eat what you get'" snippet (one of the boys explaining that he doesn't want to get married because his wife might make him eat dreaded greens). I love it.

A fascinating snapshot of an age cohort divided by social class. The pacing and interview style hold up very well.

Of its time; the lack of nametags was confusing cuz i couldn't tell you who was who, the sound is grating, and not due to the kids' shouting. But hey i'll stick around for the journey these kids go on

Difficult to rate this objectively outside of its position as genesis for a fascinating (and continuing) cinematic experiment, but the pithy insights from the kids on-screen here are at least a step-up from "kids saying the darndest things" and the production team to capture some amusing moments which show the sledgehammer literality of a seven year old's mindset. Serves its purpose as an extended current affairs segment but is definitely more useful as a signpost for bigger and better things.

Susan Sullivan: "What would you do if you had lots of money, about, um, two pound?"

As a single volume it's not exactly impressive. It's a basic execution of a novel premise, but for what it turned into, it's enough to be compelling and unique even when it's not necessarily enlightening.

Interesting start to an amazing reality experiment. Rated pretty high as more of an overall look at the series.

It's not great, but it was a necessary beginning to an intriguing series. Luckily they kept it short and the kids said enough semi-interesting things to keep me from hating it.

All it really does is show promise for the upcoming installments. I mean, you can't expect to throw the idea out there and have a masterpiece in the first set of interviews, especially when all you have on hand is a bunch of seven year-olds answering some questions with seven year-old mentalities.

Cute kids blabbering on. It's more interesting to look back on after viewing the subsequent films, but it's a bit boring the first time you experience it.

This is the first entry in very long documentary series.

Nothing too exciting/interesting happening outside the occasional unintentionally hilarious statements... "I don't particularly enjoy the coloreds, and would fancy it if they found themselves back to Africa."

I'm gonna love to see what kind of people will they turn into.

Like some others have said, it's the first one and as such there probably isn't as much depth. But listening to the kids talk is still interesting, regardless. I'll watch the other ones and see how it goes, but as a beginning this is completely solid. It does examine class structure a bit, and that adds a little bit to it.

Just watch it.

The strength of the series comes from the participants' evolution, and as such the beginning is the weakest episode. Hilarious that right off the bat John is the most unlikeable of the bunch.

I expect the later installments to improve, but the first film doesn't stand very well on its own. I'm not that interested in children to begin with, especially not such precocious ones. They're all trying to talk like adults, which gets on my nerves. Particularly the three prissy upper-class boys. The film is too short and has too many players to get very in-depth, but some of the observations about class differences are fairly intriguing. But as a stand-alone movie, there's not much meat here.

Adorable, insightful, and promising. The only issue is that watching this feels like watching the beginning of a great movie; I think it's going to end up being fantastic, but I haven't actually seen enough of it yet.

x2

The subsequent parts of the series are much better, but I have to say that it's a lot less entertaining without the flashbacks or any points of references when talking to the kids. Is there an alternative? No, obviously the series has to begin somewhere. But most of the pleasure for me comes from the contrast between the movies. You just have to kind of power through Seven Up! in order to get to the later ones.

Amazing.

"The first entry in Michael Apted's anthropological study of human lives that will slowly take shape over the course of another five films." - Ed Gonzalez

The first in the series, which can't resort to previous films to show the contrasts in their lives, so this is really a collection of interviews with very young faces. To be honest, I don't like children, but I thought what the selected kids here had to say was really cute. People who write children in narrative movies should take a look at this one first.

I'm rating all of these a 90 because I see the experiment as valuable. These are normal people, for the most part, and some are interesting, some are not. Some of them have very bad problems, some don't. The prejudice of the film-maker is obvious, but what captivated me was whether or not we come to know these children, and later adults? I think we do, better than we ever will know Tom Cruise or Lindsay Lohan, no matter how many films they make. For that, for the depth of information, it's a 90.

Sets the series off to a very good start. Doesn't get much more honest than this.

It was a bit boring, but think the rest of the series would be better as it will have more content, and the kids will have more views.

The series as a whole is a fascinating cultural and psychological study that deserves a huge amount of praise. This first episode is pretty rough though. It's short and a bit unfocused, both of which made things much more confusing to follow than they should be. It's still quite interesting to see the varied responses.

The idea is very good, I think the films are better viewed as a series than individual works.

On its own, this film doesn't deliver much, as the power of the series is in watching the characters develop. That said, watching it with the knowledge that there are future films certainly adds an element of curiosity and mystery to the experience. A good start to a fascinating series.