It serves it's purpose for a less experienced audience.
The controls are simple. Left stick to move, L1 to crouch, X to jump, and Square to interact. Moving George is fairly precise when running around or doing a standard jump, although double-jumping occasionally seems tougher than it needs to be. You don't have a lot of control over him when in a double jump and there seems to be a tight window at times as to when you can get that second jump in. Overall though, the controls are very simple and easily manageable. In fact, the simplicity could even throw off more veteran players of platformer titles.
The level design itself is well done. It's not too complicated, and you almost always have a sense as to where you're suppose to go. There can be some tricky maneuvers for less seasoned players, but it's a good game to start honing young skills. The camera even does a fair job of staying in a helpful position.
You'll find yourself taking George through environments like construction sites, the outside walls and terraces of buildings, along the roofs of cars in the city streets, the trees of the jungle, and more.
When you're not putting your jumping skills into practice, you'll be playing rhythm games, that are not only too long, but don't have much rhythm. That is to say, you'll be pressing X, O, Square & Triangle when they're in the 'hit zone', but I couldn't really tie in the timing of the button pressing with the background music.
The music style itself is fitting, and resembles that of the movie, but also feels dulled, and rarely stands out. In fact, this could be said for the sound effects and art style. It's all there, and it's not that it's poorly done, it's just not impressive.
Along your adventure you'll also be collecting one of two types of items. The first is bananas (of course). The more bananas you collect, and the more items you can unlock. Items include the 4 mini games, hats for George to wear, cut scenes, and art work. The second thing to collect is a sort of curiosity-points; these you collect by causing mischief. This could be done by opening trunks and throwing it's contents about, playing with lights or a TV, or tossing papers from a waste paper bin around. The points are your currency to buy the unlocked items. The biggest problem I had with this collecting is that your progress for an individual level isn't saved. So, if you collected 40 of 50 bananas, that may have been enough to unlock a feature, and that part is saved. But if you were to go back to try and get the last 10, you also have to collect the first 40 over again. I think it would have been better if your save file tracked which items you've already collected, so you don't have to spend your time recollecting them later.
The developers appeared to have stuck to the most basic of rules for this game, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. It won't draw in gamers used to a more intense experience, but should work just fine for new comers that enjoyed the movie. Game-play appropriateness aside, it could still do with some polishing of the presentation, more variety in the mini games, and more excitement in general.