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SuperBabies: Baby Geniuses 2
2004 - PG - 90 Mins.
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| Director: Bob Clark | | Producer: Steven Paul | | Written By: Gregory Poppen | | Starring: Jon Voight, Scott Baio, Vanessa Angel, Skyler Shaye |
| Review by: Joe Rickey |
| Official Site: www.sonypictures.com/movies/superbabiesbabygeniuses2/ |
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Crime fighters for the toddler set.
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Media mogul Bill Biscane (Jon Voight) has a nefarious plan. It involves utilizing a TV satellite and a new children-oriented television network to control the minds of the network’s young viewers. It is the first stepping stone to Biscane’s plan to control the world because, in actuality, he is a former Nazi war criminal bent on total and complete world domination. His only obstacle is a group of tiny tots, led by the one and only Kahuna. The tots have mastered the English language and have become the youngest group of crime fighters ever.
The babies’ parents, Jean and Stan Bobbins (Vanessa Angel and Scott Baio (!)) are the proprietors of Bobbins World, a day-care center. They, as is the case with many children’s films, have no idea of Biscane’s evil intentions and thus have agreed to aid him in launching the network. Their niece, Kylie (Skyler Shaye) has also joined in on the fun by agreeing to keep an eye on the babies while Stan and Jean are busy with Biscane. One day while strolling with the babies, she unwittingly comes into possession of the data disk Biscane needs to finish off his plans. Shortly, Biscane, having learned of this, sends his cronies after the disk. Only the mysterious crime fighter Kahuna can save the day.
Dumb, dull, and pointless, ‘SuperBabies: Baby Geniuses 2’ is an exercise in tedium for anyone and everyone. Even the youngsters whom it is targeted at will be bored because the plot is needlessly complicated and poorly written.
Chief among the film’s problems is the fact that director Bob Clark and screenwriter Gregory Poppen have no clue how to concoct a film that children (or anyone) would enjoy. The film is slowly paced to the point that it is very possible that young children will be asleep even before the purported “exciting” scenes come. It takes Clark far too long to set up the concept; a task that should have been made easier based on the fact that this film is a sequel and anyone seeing it should already know of the conceit that, in this world, babies can converse with more sophistication than college graduates with multiple degrees. Poppen’s screenplay is also filled with lame attempts at bathroom humor and seems fixated on the ideas of Voight’s Biscane getting kicked in the head by a baby and the idea of a baby with a special power that allows him to bounce all over the place; knocking out the bad guys in the process.
That’s far from the film’s only fault though. Clark lends the film a surprisingly dark and rather ugly color palette, totally opposite from what one should expect from a film aimed at young children. The bland production design doesn’t help matters; populated by dark interiors (caves, labs, high-tech warehouses are the norm) that not only look cheap when they’re supposed to be cutting edge, they also get dull to look at once one realizes that most of the film is going to take place in such surroundings.
The performances are fitting of the material with both Baio and Angel looking embarrassed to be in such a low grade enterprise. As for Voight, words can’t describe how over the top he goes in search of something akin to campy entertainment value. He should definitely consider firing his agent after this debacle.
‘SuperBabies: Baby Geniuses 2’ is a poorly written, directed, and acted piece of cinematic waste.
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