Cast: Kathleen Turner, Christopher Lloyd, Kim Cattrall, Peter MacNicol, Dom DeLuise, Ruby Dee, Leo Fitzpatrick, Myles Fitzpatrick, Gerry Fitzpatrick
Director: Bob Clark
Producer: Steven Paul
Screenplay: Bob Clark and Greg Michael
Cinematography: Stephen M. Katz
Music: Paul Zaza
U.S. Distributor: TriStar Pictures
One of my oft-repeated refrains in reviews is: "good premise, terrible execution." That is not a phrase I will be using in conjunction with Baby Geniuses, which is formulated on an idiotic idea and develops a predictably lackluster motion picture from it. This movie is for two segments of the theater-going public: those in the target age group (about 4 to 8 years old) and those who turn to mush while watching the antics of toddlers. If, like me, you're not a member of either, you'll find Baby Geniuses to be tedious more often than entertaining. I'll admit to chuckling a few times during the proceedings, but it's not worth losing 1 1/2 hours of one's life for a few minutes of amusement.
Baby Geniuses seems to have two main inspirations: Look Who's Talking and Home Alone. Unfortunately, instead of stealing the best elements from both movies, it pilfers the worst. In Look Who's Talking, the chief attraction was the baby's barbed comments (provided by the voice of Bruce Willis). Here, while the tots talk, there's nothing clever or witty in what they have to say. Likewise, while there's some of the cartoonish physical humor of Home Alone, none of the actors involved in these scenes has the comic timing or aptitude of Joe Pesci or Daniel Stern. The first time I saw Home Alone, I laughed so hard that my sides hurt during the scene when the thieves were breaking into the house. Nothing in Baby Geniuses comes close to being that funny.
Of course, one could make an argument that an apropos title for this film might be Baby Sadists. First of all, while the toddlers in this movie are smarter than the grown-ups (none of which have IQs greater than their shoe sizes), they're far from geniuses. Secondly, when a child causes the sharp end of a ski to connect violently with a man's... um... gonads, the kid lets loose with peals of gleeful laughter. If that isn't sadistic, I don't what is. That's not to say that this sort of humor can't work, but some parents prefer that their offspring not be exposed to such material at an early age. In fact, the scene with the ski is arguably Baby Geniuses' comic highlight, although the dialogue, which knowingly pokes fun at what's about to happen, is part of the reason for this.
Baby Geniuses' underlying premise postulates that, until they begin uttering real words, babies are actually geniuses who know the answers to all of life's questions. Their baby talk, while unintelligible to adults, isn't mere babbling - it is actually a sophisticated language (which this movie helpfully translates into English) that allows them to communicate with each other. Of course, once they reach a certain stage in their development, they lose all of this wisdom as they "cross over" into the grown-up world. As a means of emphasizing this idea, the film spends an inordinate amount of time droning on about the metaphysical repercussions of this theory. It's a colossal misjudgment - kids won't understand and adults won't care.
Identical twins Sylvester and Whit (played by real-life triplets Leo, Myles, and Gerry Fitzpatrick) were separated at birth. Whit was placed in the care of a loving mother and father (Kim Catrall and Peter MacNicol), while Sly became the property of Dr. Elena Kinder (Kathleen Turner) and her cold-hearted assistant, Dr. Heap (Christopher Lloyd), who run the Baby Geniuses Institute. Kinder's goal is to unlock the potential of young children using the "Kinder method." Her ultimate goal, like that of all megalomaniacs, is power. Sly, however, is out to foil her plans. He escapes from the Institute and makes it to a mall, where, coincidentally, Whit is shopping with his mom. In a pre-potty trained riff on The Parent Trap, Whit and Sly end up trading places.
W.C. Fields didn't like working with small dogs and children because they stole the spotlight. That's the case here, where none of the higher-billed adult actors registers more than a momentary blip. Kathleen Turner and Christopher Lloyd do their best to draw attention to themselves by overacting outrageously. It makes their characters seem more cartoon-like (which is the intention), but not more noticeable. On the other hand, a bland Kim Cattrall and more bland Peter MacNicol all-but-vanish into the background. Supporting performers include Dom DeLuise as an inept handyman and an underused Ruby Dee.
Certainly, the children featured in this film are all cute (that's a given). Equally certainly, they bear little resemblance to real 18-month olds - there's no crying or screaming and no one under the age of 10 throws a tantrum. In short, they're perfectly well behaved (leaving the misbehaving up to the badly controlled younger members of the audience). The CGI lip synching used to make it appear that the babies are actually speaking English (the same process was applied to the animals in the two Babe movies) is less-than-flawless. For the most part, the effect is like watching a dubbed movie -- the lip movements don't always match the words. Director Bob Clark (A Christmas Story) does everything in his power to make his diaper-clad cast endearing. Unfortunately, for a movie to succeed, it needs more than cuteness. Sure, it's fun to see Sly don a tux and strut his stuff to "Puttin' on the Ritz," but the entire movie is built on the shaky foundation that these kinds of moments will excuse a lot of pointless running around and inane plotting. They don't, and that makes the people behind Baby Geniuses appear dumb.
© 1999 James Berardinelli