HONEY, I BLEW UP THE KID
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 1992 Mark R. Leeper
Capsule review: Silly but undeniably enjoyable satire on 1950s science fiction films has the Szalinski family accidentally enlarging their baby to Brobdingnagian proportions. Somewhat better than it really deserves to ne Rating: +1 (-4 to +4). (Relevant diatribe follows the review!)
At the current rate I would expect by the turn of the century the film industry will have churned out more take-offs, pastiches, and satires of 1950s science fiction films than there were science fiction films made in the 1950s. None have ever seemed very good to me, but HONEY, I BLEW UP THE KID is at least more light-hearted than most. (Of course, the title may sound less good-natured than intended, but all the ads make sure everybody knows in just what sense "blew up" is intended.) This is, of course, the sequel to HONEY, I SHRUNK THE KIDS, and though HONEY, I BLEW UP THE KID began life as a script for an unrelated film BIG BABY, it was worked into a sequel for the previous film. Actually, it was to have been much the same plot as THE AMAZING COLOSSAL MAN with a baby. Echoes of that film still abound in the script.
In the years since the last film, a typical soulless corporation has taken over Wayne Szalinski's scale-bending projects and is trying to magnify and reduce objects without much luck. Rick Moranis as Wayne continues not to get much respect in spite of being the genius behind it all. Still, it is only Wayne that can make things work and even he cannot do exactly what he wants. What he accidentally creates is a two-and-a-half-year-old Adam Szalinski who grows when he passes through electromagnetic flux. (Conservation of matter? What's that all about?) We end up with a ten- story baby clomping his way through Las Vegas--even the same streets that Glenn Manning, the COLOSSAL MAN, walked. This giant, however, is not shot off of Boulder/Hoover Dam. There is only a poster of the dam to remind us of the original. Incidentally, as well all know, any satire of 1950s science fiction has to have a small role for either Kenneth Tobey or Dick Miller. This time it's Tobey's turn, with him playing a security guard.
Standards for special effects have come a long way since THE AMAZING COLOSSAL MAN (special effects in Bert. I. Gordon films were always particularly bad!). While in HONEY, I BLEW UP THE KID it rarely is difficult to tell how an effect was created, there are only a few effects that genuinely look wrong. The only really bad effect that I noted was a full-size model of a baby chest and arm in the background. The arm just does not move as wildly as it does in the surrounding scenes. Kudos should go to the "Baby Wranglers" listed in the credits, since Adam (played by Daniel and Joshua Shalikas) seems always to do exactly the right thing at the right time. And it is true that the fictional Adam and the real life Shalikas all seem to be extraordinarily well-behaved.
My rating for this light-hearted piece of summer fluff is +1 on the -4 to +4 scale.
... Diatribe follows.
I noted with some disappointment that the credits of HONEY, I BLEW UP THE KID acknowledge similarities to the story "The Attack of the Giant Baby" by Kit Reed. CINEFANTASTIQUE reports that after Reed saw a promo for the film she took the Disney organization to court over similarities to her story. Actually the Reed story concentrates on the nastier aspects of babies and shows them magnified. If, indeed, Reed thinks she invented and owns the idea of over-size babies getting loose and causing problems in her 1981 story, I might suggest that she read (or re-read) the 1904 novel THE FOOD OF THE GODS by H. G. Wells. The mechanism for creating the giant baby is in the realm of physics in the new movie. Reed's mechanism is nearly identical to Wells's. That is, she has the baby eat a food with fantastic growth properties. I seriously doubt that the Wells estate has taken Reed to court, and I can tell you for a fact that her story bears no similar acknowledgement to Wells. Science fiction has been in the past a field where people could feel free to play with others' ideas and put new twists on them. But I suppose as long as some people in the field have deep pockets and other people have greed, that can no longer be the case. Be it here noted that the concept of giant babies causing problems has somehow been transferred from the Wells estate to Reed. Presumably the concept of time travel is still the property of the Wells estate. David Brin probably owes royalties on uplift to either Wells for THE ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU or Nigel Kneale for QUATERMASS AND THE PIT. Invisibility and alien invasion again revert to the Wells estate who effectively own a controlling interest in modern science fiction. So it goes.
Mark R. Leeper
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