HONEY, I SHRUNK THE KIDS
Reviewed by David N. Butterworth
Copyright 1989 David N. Butterworth/The Summer Pennsylvanian
Imagine being zapped by a laser beam and finding yourself reduced to the size of a cheerio. Imagine battling bugs as large as Buicks. Imagine having Rick Moranis for a father!
These are just a few of the horrors the title kids have to face in HONEY, I SHRUNK THE KIDS, the diminutive but enjoyable new miniaturization comedy from the Walt Disney studios.
The film continues Hollywood's fascination with our world as seen from a different point of view. The film doesn't attempt to live up to the 1950s sci-fi classic THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN, the yardstick against which all like films are measured, but it does have a charming, harmless quality that's undeniably appealing.
Meet the Szalinskis -- nerdy, screwball inventor Wayne (Moranis), wife/mother/realtor Diane (Marcia Strassman), children Amy (Amy O'Neill, looking not unlike a young Laura Dern) and Nick (Robert Oliveri).
The products of Wayne's eccentricity litter their suburban home like dirty laundry, but his piece-de-resistance is a shrinking machine which he keeps tucked away in the attic.
Moranis is no Fred MacMurray, Disney's original Absent-Minded Professor, and it's hard to take him seriously when his eight year old son constantly upstages him. Not that Moranis' Wayne Szalinski has to show any range or depth of emotion, but his acting abilities are stretched far more in the McDonald's soft drink commercial this film spawned than in the film itself.
On the other side of the fence live the Thompsons, Russell (Matt Frewer) and Mae (Kristine Sutherland) and their two sons, Russ and Ronnie (played by Thomas Brown and Jared Rushton respectively). Frewer, desperately trying to shake off his image of television's Max Headroom, is suitably gawky in the role of Big Russ Thompson. His back-and-forth "who's crazier than whom" altercations with Moranis are consistently droll. They are not so much feuding neighbors as mutually insensitive ones.
When younger son Ronnie hits a baseball though the Szalinski's attic window, it accidentally triggers the miniaturization device. Venturing upstairs to retrieve the errant ball, he and Nick are struck by the machine's beam and shrunk. Needless to say, the two older children soon join them amidst the oversized dustballs on the attic floor.
Wayne returns home after having been snubbed by his peers at a scientific conference and proceeds to trash the contraption. Sweeping up the resulting debris -- as well as his progeny -- he dumps them in the garbage. What follows are the four Lilliputians' big adventures trying to get across the lawn, and back to normal size, before dark.
Realizing that it's literally a jungle out there now, Amy comments off- handedly to her pint-sized brother "We're not in Kansas anymore, Toto," to which he retorts, "We're not in the food chain anymore, Dorothy." That aside, and Amy's "I have six hours to get home, get big and get to the mall!" are two of the better lines in the movie. There's a cute relationship developed between Amy and Russ, and the film does make some valid points about living in suburban harmony and all that neighborly rigmarole.
The special effects range from downright cheesy to generally effective. Of particular note are the flight of the bumblebee -- an exciting addition to the traditional buttercups-as-beanstalks scenario -- and the exploding droplets of water from the lawn sprinklers. And, except for the demise of an endearing ant, the film keeps everything in perspective and is amusing and light-hearted throughout. The image of Moranis and Strassman dangling from a clothes line with binoculars trained on the grass is a particularly silly one.
In order to appreciate just how engaging the film is, one need look no further than "Tummy Trouble," the Roger Rabbit cartoon which accompanies it. That film, in direct contrast, is crass, mean-spirited and unbelievably violent. Children about to go into hospital could easily be affected by this Maroon Cartoon's misguided portrayal of doctors and surgical procedures.
Viewers of HONEY, I SHRUNK THE KIDS, on the other hand, might well think twice before stepping on an ant again. It's certainly a most uncomfortable pairing, and one which should have Uncle Walt turning over in his grave.
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