G2 was certainly the first 12 I saw. I was 10. It was by brother’s 12th birthday.

The first 18 I saw was Robocop, which I got from a video shop when I was aged 7.

Given a choice between 15 and 12A, I’d say that 12A was probably the correct rating. Certainly the film does not revel in scenes of actual violence (almost all is committed off-screen) but instead gives us tension with the threat of violence. If the old 12 rating still existed however I would say that would have been a more helpful one to give this film (even if it was never enforced).

What this has shown up is that people will just treat the 12A rating like a PG. Responsible parents can research the content of the film or even watch it without their children before making a decision.

As for complaining about the use of knives in the film, I do not think a character who clearly is being shown to be unhinged using a knife will make people more likely to use them.

Are there really scores of psychopathic teenagers sat around who have never thought of the idea of using a knife to hurt somebody? Who are ignorant of the stories in the news that appear seemingly every day? Who are oblivious to Keith Vaz’s party making repeated pronouncements about knife crime?

I am fed up with society blaming immorality and “bad things” on the media. It abdicates people of responsibility for their actions to say that a movie or game made them do something. If a child takes the wrong message away from this movie then that is the parent’s responsibility – for not watching it with them or talking to them about the issues in this picture (which are wide and include terrorism, vigilantism, anarchism, the nature of morality as well as wider issues of due process, democracy and grief).

There are websites out there that list in detail the themes of movies and discuss their suitability for family audiences. For instance http://www.kids-in-mind.com/ which lists instances of sex, substance abuse, swearing and boils down discussion points from each movie. Given the abudance of information around there really should be no excuse!