Cinemasochist Review: SuperBabies: Baby Geniuses 2
There is a list out there somewhere of life-altering experiences that each one of us should have before we die. Burn incense at Kathmandu. Visit the Grand Canyon. See the Mona Lisa.
Viewing SuperBabies: Baby Geniuses 2 is not on that list. If it were on the list, it would be near the bottom, along with performing Cast Away style dentistry and having a Silkwood shower. This is the worst one I’ve had to watch so far, people. I know I say that every review, but this time I mean it: I really hate each one of you with all my heart. I mean, just look at that poster.
This film was far smellier than my twins’ diapers.
Where to begin with this film? I suppose we can start with the cinematic enigma which is Jon Voight. Voight, an Academy Award-winning actor and star in such films as Midnight Cowboy, Deliverance, Catch-22 and Mission: Impossible, nonetheless continues to amaze and astound audiences by starring and stinking in some serious b-movies (witness the soon-to-stink epic, September Dawn). Voight, who produced the first Baby Geniuses, here stars as the villainous Bill Biscane, an evil (regular) genius who plans on launching a mind-control satellite TV network aimed at kids, because of course “kids are the future!” Clearly he’s taking Whitney Houston a bit too seriously.
Standing as the front line of defense against Biscane’s nefarious plot is the freak mutant abortion known as Kahuna, the chief Baby Genius in question. Kahuna (played by triplets) has super-strength, talks like an adult and drives some sort of super-scooter. Guzzling some sort of radioactive isotope drink from a baby bottle (cute!), he then proceeds to dish out some retarded toddler moves on the inept henchmen repeatedly sent by Biscane, in wire-work that would make Yuen Wo-Ping garrote himself.
In his pursuit of Biscane, Kahuna befriends some kids in a local daycare run by Vanessa Angel and Scott Baio, who share one brain between the two of them. Scott Baio is particularly disappointing in light of his brilliance as Bob Loblaw on Arrested Development. Scott, from hell’s heart I stab at thee! Anyways, the nascent superbabies are a microcosm of all there is great in America: there’s a Jewish kid, a latina diva, a token african-american toddler, and one regular dumb baby. The kids are just as retarded as the adults, and Kahuna helps all of them unlock their inner superbabies to resist the infamous Biscane.
Oh, and Kahuna and Biscane have been enemies since just after WWII. In a sense, SuperBabies: Baby Geniuses 2 is just like Lost: multiple flashbacks to various locations treat us to the characters’ rich and deep backstory. Except here, it’s completely stupid. Want me to spoil it? OK!
————-SPOILER——————-
Kahuna the Infant Freak and Biscane are brothers. YES! I know! I was shocked as well. Kahuna accidentally drank some of his father’s mutant baby formula and is trapped in a child’s body forever, except that he has adult and sometimes super-strength. And so Biscane naturally thinks his brother is a complete abomination; he shuns his brother, joins the post-WWII Nazi movement, and vows to control all children everywhere. Naturally.
———–END SPOILER—————–
Enough of the plot itself. Here’s the creepiest thing: the talking babies. Everyone already knows this is wrong, unnatural anmd a sin against nature. But in SuperBabies: Baby Geniuses 2, this crime is elevated to an evil art: inept CGI slows down their mouths and alters their lips to match the children’s natural blabbering to the voiceovers. The result is a bunch of babies that appear slightly drunken. It’s pitiful.
In summary, this was a complete waste of time and a horrible movie that I’d like to forget but can’t because it was so awful. Oh, and it stars Justin Chatwin, who was Tom Cruise’s suicidal son in War of the Worlds. And that’s all I have to say about SuperBabies: Baby Geniuses 2. Screw off, people. You’ve hurt me this time — deeply.
p.s. I refuse to resize that poster image. I had to suffer, so do you.
Comment by Supergenius — March 22, 2007 @ 11:07 am
I think this was on tv the other day, unless it was the first one. I almost watched it.
Comment by Susan M — March 22, 2007 @ 11:41 am
You’ve hurt me this time  deeply.
And I’d do it again.
(so what’s the next theme?)
Comment by danithew — March 22, 2007 @ 11:49 am
The beautiful thing here is the fact that Baby Geniuses 3 is on its way to theaters (read: DVD).
Comment by Justin — March 22, 2007 @ 12:08 pm
Re: #3,
May I suggest talking animals, animation excluded.
Comment by John Scherer — March 22, 2007 @ 2:08 pm
Talking animals … sounds promising.
What sayeth ye, O Supergenius?
Comment by danithew — March 22, 2007 @ 2:16 pm
Already done.
Comment by Supergenius — March 22, 2007 @ 2:20 pm
see here.
Comment by Supergenius — March 22, 2007 @ 2:20 pm
I am so grateful you’ve covered this for me.
Comment by Rhapsidiomite — March 22, 2007 @ 2:29 pm
Steve Guttenberg movies?
Comment by BTD Greg — March 22, 2007 @ 2:32 pm
I think next should be disaster movies.
Comment by Susan M — March 22, 2007 @ 2:51 pm
I thought we were doing chick flicks next.
Comment by Tim J — March 22, 2007 @ 2:52 pm
you buzzards, already picking on my corpse!! You’ll get another topic when I’m damn good and ready.
Comment by Supergenius — March 22, 2007 @ 2:54 pm
OK. Chick flicks, then disaster movies.
Comment by Susan M — March 22, 2007 @ 3:06 pm
I’m ready to nominate Hanging Up as worst chick flick in recent memory. We walked out of the theater and I told my wife, “I get to choose where we go to dinner and you don’t get to utter a syllable of protest.” We then ate at a hole in the wall Brazilian place that I had been really anxious to go to but she had refused. The shame of having forced me to watch that movie was such that she didn’t complain about the food until the next day.
btw, great review. I do think it is a little misleading to have the lead baby be an adult in a baby body. Seems to defeat the purpose.
Comment by a random John — March 22, 2007 @ 3:20 pm
Is it official that the next category is chick flicks?
Comment by danithew — March 22, 2007 @ 3:22 pm
1980’s may be a good category. Maybe a little broad, however.
Comment by John Scherer — March 22, 2007 @ 3:23 pm
Let’s combine suggestions and narrow the category to 80’s Chick Flick Disasters. Still lots to choose from.
Comment by Allison — March 22, 2007 @ 3:33 pm
Allison, I’m afraid that narrowing it down to the 80s would remove the suggestion I want to give (for the chick flicks category). And it’s a doozy.
Comment by danithew — March 22, 2007 @ 3:37 pm
Allison, you get more evil every day.
Comment by Supergenius — March 22, 2007 @ 3:38 pm
Does it star Steve Gutenberg as the romantic lead?
Comment by Allison — March 22, 2007 @ 3:39 pm
Ooh, Steve Gutenberg! I hope it’s a “Police Academy” flick.
Comment by John Scherer — March 22, 2007 @ 3:41 pm
Allison, let’s just say that “Television Without Pity” listed 146 reasons why this movie sucked.
Comment by danithew — March 22, 2007 @ 3:43 pm
I dunno. The Police Academy movies are actually kind of funny, and not really chick flicks. We don’t want to go too easy on SG, do we?
Danithew, I thought TWP only did TV. I guess I should read it more.
Comment by Allison — March 22, 2007 @ 4:26 pm
Hey, movies are shown on tv - so, they count.
*offers SuperG chocolate* This’ll make it better.
Which would you rather do - suffer a dementor’s kiss or watch Superbabies 2 again?
re: chick flicks. my spidey sense is tingling. I think I might have to be defensive on this one (like with The Pirate Movie).
Comment by Jennifer — March 23, 2007 @ 9:39 am
A sad ending to the story:
‘Christmas Story’ Director Dies in Crash
By JEREMIAH MARQUEZ
LOS ANGELES (AP) - Bob Clark, whose film “A Christmas Story” became a seasonal fixture for its bittersweet cataloguing of holiday dreams and disappointments, was killed with his son in a car crash. He was 67.
Clark and Ariel Hanrath-Clark, 22, were traveling on the Pacific Coast Highway in the Pacific Palisades when they were killed Wednesday, said Lyne Leavy, Clark’s personal assistant.
Their car was struck head-on by an SUV that a drunken driver steered into the wrong lane, police said.
“It’s a tragic day for all of us who knew and loved Bob Clark,” said Scott Schwartz, who played the flagpole-licking character Flick in “A Christmas Story” and kept in touch with Clark over the years. “Bob was a fun-lovin’, jelly-roll kinda guy who will be sorely missed.”
The driver of the other vehicle, Hector Velazquez-Nava, 24, of Los Angeles was arrested and booked for investigation of driving under the influence of alcohol and gross vehicular manslaughter. He was being held on $100,000 bail.
“The initial investigation has concluded that Nava was driving without a license northbound in the southbound lanes while under the influence of an alcoholic beverage,” said Lt. Paul Vernon, a police spokesman.
An LAPD officer said early Thursday she didn’t know if Nava had an attorney.
Clark had a prolific movie and TV directing career. He specialized in horror movies and thrillers early on, directing such 1970s movies as “Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things,”"Murder by Decree,”"Breaking Point” and “Black Christmas,” which was remade last year.
His breakout success came with 1981’s sex farce “Porky’s,” a coming-of-age romp that he followed two years later with “Porky’s II: The Next Day.”
In 1983, he directed, co-produced and co-wrote “A Christmas Story,” an adaptation of Jean Shepard’s childhood memoir of a boy in the 1940s.
The film starred Peter Billingsly as Ralphie Parker, a young boy determined to get a Red Ryder BB gun for Christmas.
The film was a modest theatrical success, but critics loved it. It eventually joined “It’s a Wonderful Life” and “Miracle on 34th Street” as one of the Christmas films audiences watch year after year.
In 1994, Clark directed a forgettable sequel, “It Runs in the Family,” featuring Charles Grodin, Mary Steenburgen and Kieran Culkin in a continuation of Shepard’s memoirs.
In recent years, Clark made family comedies that were savaged by critics, including “Karate Dog,”"Baby Geniuses” and its sequel, “Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2.”
Among Clark’s other movies were Sylvester Stallone and Dolly Parton’s “Rhinestone,” Timothy Hutton’s “Turk 182!”, and Gene Hackman and Dan Aykroyd’s “Loose Cannons.”
Comment by Jennifer — April 5, 2007 @ 9:09 am
That’s sad.
Had no idea that guy made Superbabies AND A Christmas Story.
Comment by Susan M — April 5, 2007 @ 9:18 am
I know! and Porky’s! Hard to wrap your head around that.
Comment by Jennifer — April 5, 2007 @ 9:28 am
Actually, Clark’s true masterpiece was the original BLACK CHRISTMAS which is still chilling and disturbing to this day.
Comment by Brian G — April 5, 2007 @ 9:45 am
“A sad ending to the story”
Karma.
Look, the guy made some monumental films, and I’m sad he died with Baby Geniuses being the most recent in his repertoire. But that was most likely the worst movie I’ve ever seen, and A Christmas Story wasn’t that good….
Comment by Supergenius — April 5, 2007 @ 10:16 am
Liar.
Comment by Susan M — April 5, 2007 @ 10:41 am