Login
Remember John Hughes' Home Alone? After the tremendous box office success of that flick, John Hughes certainly did, as he proceeded to rehash the central premise for easy money. This ultimately led to the film in question: 1994's Baby's Day Out, which replaces Macaulay Culkin with a 9-month-old toddler. The prolific Hughes wrote and directed several great movies throughout the '80s, yet Baby's Day Out is awful. As Mr. Plinkett stated in his video review, it feels as if Hughes whipped up the shit script in an afternoon in order to earn the money to buy a new boat. Well, no matter what Hughes' excuse is, this movie is total bullshit and the unrealistic premise is impossible to buy for a minute. The film was designed to pull off two things: make you laugh, and warm your heart. It fails at both goals.
Baby Bink (played by the Worton twins) is the infant son of the self-absorbed, wealthy Cotwells (Boyle, Glave) who wish to put Bink's photo in the newspaper. Hence, they hire a professional photographer, but three bumbling criminals (Mantegna, Haley, Pantoliano) show up to the mansion with other plans for Bink - plans that include kidnapping and a $5 million ransom. As the police begin an investigation, Bink escapes the criminals by crawling out an open window to explore New York City. The three hapless kidnappers find themselves perpetually chasing down the little tyke, and succumb to various serious injuries in the process. As it turns out, Bink is using the illustrations of his favourite book as his guide around the city. Yeah, that's right - the little 9-month-old kid has committed the pictures to memory and he manages to stumble across every illustration in the book. 'Kay then...
There's nothing much to Baby's Day Out at all - literally, up to 80 minutes of the runtime are comprised of "comedy" set-pieces as the kid (blessed with the luck of the Irish) wanders around the city and evades the kidnappers at every turn. There is not a modicum of worthwhile humour in the whole movie, as the bashings and burnings the hapless villains receive get tiring immediately. Nothing remotely intelligent is offered here, either - there are just an inordinate number of jokes dealing with male reproductive organs being crushed, mutilated or incinerated. The cartoonish pratfalls that befall the bad guys are not funny - they're just painful, and should have induced serious injuries. This is a movie for kids, sure, but the prime aim is to make people laugh through the pratfalls, and this valuable piece of information eluded the filmmakers. Patrick Read Johnson directed the movie, and he went on to make...well, nothing. He's done a bit of producing and a splash of acting over the years without finding a groove. Directing is definitely not his forte - Baby's Day Out was woefully made, with glaring continuity problems all over the place (see the revolving door scene, or the gorilla sequence) and obvious special effects (see the dummy in the big lady's bag, and the obvious wire work during the gorilla sequence).
On top of this, the villains do stupid things and never use their brains. Their stupidity is not funny in the slightest - it's eye-rolling. Meanwhile, the "comedic" set-pieces are excruciatingly lengthy and awkward (see the scene with the police officers in the park), and none of the civilian bystanders throughout the course of the movie seem to realise that there's a little baby right there in front of their eyes! Bink is in the front doorway of a bus, yet the driver does not notice? When a delivery man is in an apartment building delivering a package, neither the delivery man nor the recipient notices a baby at their feet? This fucking bullshit is never-ending. What's most annoying about Baby's Day Out, though, is the attempt at an emotional message. Bink's mother at one stage tearfully acknowledges her misplaced priorities, and even admits Bink's nanny is a better mother figure than herself. But nothing substantial stems from this; it's just forced emotion. Fuck that shit. And, while the central three performers carried out their duties well enough, the acting as a whole is unremarkable and sleep-inducing. The baby is a more energetic performer.
Young children might laugh at Baby's Day Out, but there's a question as to whether the content is suitable for tots. In Home Alone, the criminals received relatively minor injuries, yet the cartoon mentality of Baby's Day Out was inflated to Wile E. Coyote proportions, with the criminals surviving should-be-fatal accidents. When it happens to people rather than animated creatures, it's flat-out disturbing. Thus, the movie has nothing to offer adults, and is unsuitable for kids. It should be fucking banned.
1.0/10
