AllMovie

The German "home front" of World War 2 is witnessed through 12-year-old eyes in the US-Canadian coproduction War Boy. Jason Hopely plays the young protagonist, attempting to grow up and cope while the world around him descends into hell. Denied the huge budget of Spielberg's similarly themed Empire of the Sun, the film is more successful on an intimate, personal level in depicting a child's eye view of the horrors of war. The film's PG rating is due to a brief scene involving Hopely's sexual awakening. Helen Shaver and Kenneth Welsh costar in this unjustly underrated film.