As The Globe and Mail writer James Bradshaw writes, Jacob Two-Two is "two plus two plus two years old, has two brothers and two sisters, and has to say everything twice just to be heard; odd numbers aren't his thing.

He is sentenced to two years, two months, two weeks and two minutes by the judge (Ice-T) in the Children's Prison hundreds of miles away from civilization.

Writing for Variety, Brendan Kelly suggests that while the opening of the film is funny, at least some of the material may not hold children's attention: "This dark, edgy kids’ fantasy may not have enough light action to keep the grade-schoolers amused.

Sophisticated and largely intriguing, modern-day fairy tale centers on a six-year-old boy’s nightmare of life in a prison for kids.

But the acting is uneven, the pacing not fast enough for young attention spans, and the material may simply be too downbeat to click with the under-ten set.