Honey, I Shrunk the Kids/Honey, I Blew Up the Kid

Very much in the same vain has earlier Disney live-action classics like “The Absent-Minded Professor” and “Son of Flubber,” “Honey, I Shrunk the Kids,” released in 1989, gives a nice mix of thrills, character and humor that will keep the entire family captivated and occupied the entire time.

Rick Moranis plays Professor Wayne Szalinski, a crazy scientist who is trying to make a machine that will shrink living things. When the professor’s kids, teenage daughter Amy (Amy O’Neil) and little brother Nick (Robert Oliveri), and their two neighbors (Thomas Brown and Jared Rushton) accidentally turn the machine on they are all shrunk to size of ants. This begins their dangerous journey from the trash can, where the professor has mistakenly put them, through the apparently enormous backyard, to what they hope will be the safety of their home.

TV Guide noted in their review, “Based on a story by Stuart Gordon (RE-ANIMATOR), Brian Yuzna and Ed Naha, HONEY, I SHRUNK THE KIDS was to have been directed by Gordon, but, after conflicts with the studio, he was replaced by special-effects man Joe Johnston (making his directorial debut). Espousing values of decency and tolerance between its terrific action sequences, HONEY harkens back to Disney's past. Consistently exciting, inventive and fun, the film is a rollicking good adventure, with enough bravura effects to keep the most hyperactive youngster interested.”

Seems right that Buena Vista’s best release since “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?” was started with a brand new Roger Rabbit cartoon short, “Tummy Trouble, the first animated short produced by the Disney studio in over 25 years.

What’s strange though is that the movie actually had a sequel, “Honey, I Blew Up the Kid,” released in 1992. I remember watching the first movie, since we own that on VHS and I do remember seeing commercials and little bits of the sequel on TV, but then I saw the whole movie a few years back.

Roger Ebert started his review out by admitting, “I was not a fan of "Honey, I Shrunk The Kids" (1989), but that movie shines as a beacon of originality compared to "Honey, I Blew Up the Kid," the sequel. Simple logic helps to explain my reasoning.”

What would you rather look at? Four kids shrunk and trying to fight off everything giant, or one giant toddler scaring everyone in the cities he goes through? The first movie, with insects the type of science-fiction monsters and its lawns that looked like rain forests, was actually more visually interesting than anything in this movie.

“Honey, I Blew Up the Kid” is mainly scaled down to one main image, with a movie trying to form around it. Ebert noted, “The image is of a 2-year-old who has grown as tall as the biggest casinos in Las Vegas, and walks up and down the street like Godzilla while pedestrians cringe and scientists scramble for a solution. There may be, for all I know, comic possibilities in a giant kid, but this movie doesn't find them. Even the old giant grasshopper movies from Japan found more things to do with their monsters than this movie does.”

One of the problems is that the main character is, actually, a baby, a real 2-year-old, played by twins Daniel and Joshua Shalikar. Ebert noted, “Like many children that age, he doesn't really participate in the world but simply toddles around, gurgling and grabbing stuff and trying out words.” Under the situations, the movie can’t put the baby in real danger, definitely not like the scary dangers the kids in the first movie went up against, like the part where they almost got eaten in a bowl of Cheerios.

The movie reprises Rick Moranis and Marcia Strassman, as the oddball city inventor and his wife, and Robert Oliveri, their son in the first movie, who has now grown to his teenage years and is again shrunk along with his girlfriend (Keri Russell) as a side story. Amy O’Neil briefly comes back, but is left for college immediately after the movie starts. Moranis, now working for a right scientific corporation run by Lloyd Bridges, is trying to change his original shrinking machine so it will cause things to grow, creating apples the size of cars. However, he accidentally causes his baby to grow instead.

Ebert noted, “The movie up until this point has been fairly aimless.” Now it starts to detract, with parts like when the neighbors congregate in front of the house, listen to the sounds inside, being to walk up the sidewalk and are never seen again. Inside, where the baby is at first in his giant playpen, the screenwriters aren’t able to come up with visual jokes, and so the problem is mainly just sits there. The Vegas parts, with helicopters flying around and bad guys with tranquilizer guns, are weak and expected.

The movement in this story goes like this: Baby gets big, baby stands around, people get scared, and baby gets little again.

Ebert admitted, “There's no attempt at satire or irony. The special effects, on the other hand, are terrific, as they were in the first movie. The filmmakers are able to combine the giant baby and the "real world" in shots that seem convincing, and the image of the toddler walking down Glitter Gulch is state-of-the-art.

Too bad the movie depends on special effects to help the movie, and doesn’t bring anything else to the audience.

In all honesty, this was an average film. I don’t think it’s as good as the first movie, but just alright. If you want to see this film, it wouldn’t hurt, but I don’t recommend it like I do the first one.

Check in tomorrow for more excitement in “Disney Live-Action Month.”