GOO-GOO GA-GA!!!
I'm pretty sure it's safe to say that kid's movies aren't going to be great Oscar winners and they have the excuse to be as crazy, wild, goofy, and just plain stupid because their target audiences often wet themselves in their Osh Gosh overalls, and I'm not talking about Grandpa. So I was wondering what the deal was when I heard "Baby Geniuses" was a Hollywood failure because the idea is intended for kids, mainly because it features kids. But watching it myself, I can see how even a kid would wanna throw their dirty diapers at the screen and demand their parent's money back.
Slyvester, a toddler, escapes from "Baby Co.", which is a company devoted to making toys for kids but secretly has a labortory underground. Some security guards chase after Sly, as he's called throughout the movie, and Sly fights back-literally. He does kung-fu on the ADULT'S, and I do mean kung-fu, back flips, karate chops, the whole works.
Sly's finally captured and he is "lectured" by Heep, played by Christopher Lloyd, who probably wishes Robert Zmeckis would make more "Back To The Future" movies. Heep is second in command, underneath Elana Kinder, played by Kathleen Turner, who wishes she was making more movies with Michael Douglas and Danny DeVito. Kinder and Heep are keeping babies that are orphaned (I'm guessing) in their lab and watching them play and communicate to each other because they have a theory that babies have the secret to life inside their mind.
How or why a baby would have such information is lost on me. But they lose this information when they "cross-over", meaning when they start to talk like a "grown-up". Heep accesses the backstory database and reveals that Sly has a twin brother named Whit, and Whit is in the care of Dan and Robin, played by Peter MacNicol, who wishes "Alley MacBeal" was still on the air, and Kim Cattrall, who I'm wondering why she took this role cause "Sex & The City" was still on the air. Oh, and for some reason, nobody must know that Sly and Whit are twins.
Robin and Dan run a daycare center, with the help of Lenny, played by Dom DeLuise, who probably wasn't doing anything better anyway, Dickie, who goes through odd stages so he can get fired from the place, and Margo, an old black ex-hippie, according to her anyway. Robin and Dan adopted Whit because they thought they couldn't have kids, but then they actually did have a kid, Carrie. Enough backstory for you?
Sly manages to escape again, in true Great Escape fashion...or Von Ryan's Express fashion...or Dirty Dozen fashion...ah hell, he just jumped into a dirty diaper truck and escaped. He gets to "the city" and wonders around until a homeless person grabs him, thinking there's a reward. But Sly, being a "baby genius", manages to knock him out and seek refuge in a old fashion baby buggy, where a female baby is laying.
The female baby wanted to get it on with Sly, which disturbed him and me. The crack the writers must've been smoking must've kicked in at this point. Anyway, the mother pushing the buggy goes to a mall where Sly hides out and when the mall closes, has a little party, playing "Crash Bandicoot", trying on different clothes, and somehow finding a little polyester dance suit and mimics John Travolta in "Saturday Night Fever". If anything else happened after that scene I don't remember because I was hitting my head on my desk asking "Why God why" over and over.
When I finally stopped hitting myself, Robin and Whit go to the EXACT SAME MALL THAT SLY IS HIDING IN!! WOW!!! Who would've thought? And while both Sly and Whit are playing in the same jungle gym, they run across each other and scream, like any normal baby would do. Well, Kinder's goons arrives at the jungle gym and think Whit is Sly and take Whit away, while Robin grabs Sly.
When Whit arrives at the lab, he is scared and confused and while talking to the other babies, Heep realizes that Whit isn't sly and he tells Kinder. At first she's pissed, but then is happy because she wants to see Sly interact with an actual family while she studies a non-genius baby.
Yeah, I didn't get it either.
All while this is happening, Dan and Robin notice that Sly isn't acting like Whit, because Whit doesn't swing from a rope like Tarzan and does sumersalts in the air. Oh, and Dan is also trying to communicate to babies and he can kinda sorta pick up words here and there.
Then out of nowhere (I might've missed it cause I'd periodically hit my head on my desk throughout this film) Kinder got nervous about Sly being there and asks some of her goons to get him. So the two goons disguise themselves as electricians and Sly manages to trick them using a stairwell, a ski, and an iron. I don't really feel like explaining it, but I'll just say this: the scene made every guy cringe.
OWWWW!!!!!!!!!!!
When that didn't work, Kinder really gets paranoid (Yeah, some Black Sabbath would help me forget this horrible movie) and decides to move the entire operation to Litchenstein. And since Sly and Whit can somehow communicate to each other, cause they're twins I guess, Sly comes up with a plan to get to the lab and save Whit and the other babies before they go to Litchenstein, which I'm guessing a lot of laderhosen is worn.
Sly and some other babies at the day care hypnotize Lenny and Dickie, aka Ice Pick (when he was in a punk mood), and they take the babies to Baby Co., where Sly battles Kinder and Heep at Baby Co.'s answer to Great America, "Joy World".
And what a scene this is. There's giant robotic babies, clowns, even Santa and his elves are robotic. Heep gets on a rollercoaster and...that's about it. That'll teach him. During all the chaos, Kinder snags Whit and takes him to the roof where a helicopter is waiting. Dan and Robin, who figured the whole thing out when Carrie went ahead and talked to Dan and explained the whole thing, arrive and chase Elena to the roof. First Dan tries to save Whit but he falls and hits his head. Then Robin goes after her.
Now, this would've been a good time to throw in some excitement for the fathers in the audiences and have Kathleen Turner and Kim Cattrall roll around in mud or pudding or anything really, but no, the police show up and just arrests everybody.
Dan had amnesia at first (I think, my head was starting to hurt from all the banging I was doing to it), but remembers everything, they keep Sly, who, along with Whit, "crossed-over" and talks normally now. There's a cutesy message at the end, along with an even more cutesy montage of the babies talking and playing with each other that went on WAY too long.
I really tried to grade this on a curve because it's a kid's movie, but I can not see any way any kid would like this movie. I wish I had some kids I could show this to but I'm just gonna have to go with my insticts on this one. And what's even more disturbing is, there's gonna be a sequel!! NO!!!!!
1 star.
"Baby Geniuses" on IMDb.com:
(Voted #27 on the "Bottom 100")
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118665/