Baby Geniuses (1999) and Superbabies (2004)

We have reached the fiftieth post of the Sunday “Bad” Movies.  I have seen 57 movies that many would consider to be bad.  Whether by name, reputation, or actual quality of the movies, they were put into the Sunday “Bad” Movies for a reason.  They all seemed like they would be bad.  Through watching these movies, I have amassed fifty posts about different movies, my relationship with the movies, themes related to the movies, and some of the crazy things I have watched.  In this milestone post (I consider fifty to be a milestone, even if the year anniversary is so close to it), I want to relate this week’s two movies to some of the previous posts.  The two movies can certainly tie into a lot of the previous movies and topics I’ve brought up in the past.  It’s the perfect way to look back upon the movies covered previously, before writing my retrospective on the first fifty posts.

The movies that I watched for this week’s post are Baby Geniuses and Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2.  The first of the two movies is about a baby escaping from a laboratory and switching places with the twin that he never knew he had.  It stars Kim Cattrall, Peter MacNicol, Dom DeLuise, Kathleen Turner, Sam McMurray (previously in The Craigslist Killer), and Christopher Lloyd (previously in The Oogieloves and the Big Balloon Adventure).  The twins are played by brothers Leo, Myles, and Gerry Fitzgerald, and are voiced by Miko Hughes (previously in Surf School).  It was directed by famed director Bob Clark.  He is known for movies like Porky’s, Black Christmas, and A Christmas Story.  He also directed Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2.  Superbabies is about a young child superhero that teams with a bunch of babies to stop a former Nazi from controlling the world through television.  The idea is much better than the final product.  It featured performances by Scott Baio, Vanessa Angel, Justin Chatwin, Skyler Shae, and Jon Voight.  The Fitzgerald brothers return to play Kahuna, the young superhero.  They are the only returning actors from the first film.

Baby Geniuses was a movie that I was considering for the Sunday “Bad” Movie since the beginning.  I was still polling to see what movie I should watch when Baby’s Day Out was chosen.  Baby Geniuses was against Baby’s Day Out in that week’s poll.  The movie has been in my mind as a potential for the Sunday “Bad” Movies since at least that fifth post.  Later on in the Sunday “Bad” Movies, I decided to do franchises at every ten posts, so Superbabies was added to my consideration of Baby Geniuses.  When I did up the schedule for the first year of the Sunday “Bad” Movies, I decided that the fiftieth post was the one where I would tackle two of the most notoriously bad movies of all time.

The reputation of the franchise is the main reason that I wanted to include it in the Sunday “Bad” Movies.  During the decade and a half since the release of Baby Geniuses, the franchise has gained the reputation of containing some of the worst movies in the history of film.  Both films have their own spot on the IMDb bottom 100.  As of October 21^st, when I am completing this post, Baby Geniuses is at number 76, while Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2 has the distinction of being the number 1 worst movie, according to IMDb.  They tend to be near the top of most lists of the worst movies ever made.  I needed to see for myself if they were truly that bad, or if I would feel like I did while watching Crossover, saying that they didn’t deserve their bottom 100 status.

I didn’t completely understand the hate for the first Baby Geniuses when I was watching it.  Yes, a lot of it was boring.  I will not deny that part about it.  I would still give it credit for attempting to do something different with a familiar story about look-a-likes who switch places, a story we’ve seen in movies like The Parent Trap and Garfield: A Tale of Two Kitties.  It tried to change up the story blueprint by making it a tale of intelligent babies and human laboratory experiments.  It might not have fully succeeded at what it attempted, but at least it made the attempt.  I brought this same idea up last week when I wrote about Jonah: A Veggietales Movie.  A movie like Jonah told a story that many people know without changing the story to breathe something new and fresh into it.  It changed a few things, such as the characters becoming vegetables instead of humans, but Jonah: A Veggietales Movie was primarily exactly what was in the Bible.  Comparatively, Baby Geniuses was able to take a tired narrative concept and bring some new ideas to it.  The ideas may not have been great ideas, but the effort is half the battle.  The first movie in the franchise might not be great, but it certainly deserves a better reputation than it has.  I think it is guilty by association.  I think its reputation is brought down by its sequel.

Superbabies, the sequel to Baby Geniuses, was released in 2004 as a means of capitalizing on the superhero craze.  X-Men, Spider-Man, and Daredevil were all making it to the big screen.  Why not take the mildly financially successful Baby Geniuses there again with a superhero themed sequel?  This isn’t as direct a rip-off as A Car’s Life, Tappy Toes, or Hansel and Gretel Get Baked were.  Instead of capitalizing on a specific movie, the movie is capitalizing upon a subgenre.  The babies get to become superheroes.  They might succeed at defeating a former Nazi, but they don’t succeed at making anything that resembles a good, entertaining movie.  There are some fun ideas in the writing, but they get lost in the rest of the script, as well as the poor acting and direction.  The movie could have been much better, but instead, it’s a steaming pile of turd.

The thing that makes Baby Geniuses suffer the most is a terrible case of sequilitis.  This is a term that I brought up previously in my posts for the Deuce Bigalow movies and the Dorm Daze movies.  Sequelitis is when the people who are making a sequel forget what made the original special.  At least, that is one of the meanings.  As it pertains to Superbabies, that is the form of sequelitis that is in effect.  The first movie had an underlying theme of growing up while keeping the wonder of childhood.  The babies and adults were equally intelligent in different ways.  There was a mystery behind the intelligence of the babies.  It was left open-ended. The sequel removed all of that intrigue.  The adults were less intelligent.  There was no underlying theme of not losing who you were as a child when you grow up.  Instead, it was simply babies being smart and babies having super powers.  As the franchise grew, it forgot what it was.

Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2 is as far as I made it into the Baby Geniuses franchise.  If you read that sentence correctly, you’re probably thinking “Is he saying that there are more movies in this horrendous franchise?”  The answer to that question would be yes.  There is more to the Baby Geniuses franchise.  In fact, there are three more movies.  I only found out about them while doing some research for the two that I watched.  I didn’t include them in this week’s post because I don’t know when they are set for release, outside of sometime this year.  The first of the three new films has already been released, but I don’t know if the other two have, or when they will be if they have not.  They are scheduled for 2013, though.  I will likely be watching them in a future installment of the Sunday “Bad” Movie.  For now, I will remain in my shocked state, wondering who thought that three more movies was a good idea.

And that brings the fiftieth Sunday “Bad” Movie post to an end.  Baby Geniuses is a bad (not terrible) movie that doesn’t deserve its reputation.  Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2 is horrendous.  It should never be watched, outside of the superhero bouncy ball baby who bounces around the room taking down thugs.  I would not recommend either film.  I would recommend that you stay away from the second one.  Watch something better instead.  Watch something like Miami Connection.  (I got one more movie in there!)

There are obviously a bunch of notes for this one, so stick with me while I get through them.  Then you can go back to your families and do important things.  Here are the notes:

• Christopher Lloyd was in The Oogieloves and the Big Balloon Adventure.  Miko Hughes was in Surf School.  Sam McMurray was in The Craigslist Killer.  Those are the only three actors from these movies that were in other Sunday “Bad” Movies.
• Here are the posts for Baby’s Day Out and Miami Connection, two movies I name-dropped in there.
• Here’s the post for Crossover, where I discussed the IMDb top 100.
• Here’s the post for Jonah: A Veggietales Movie, in which I wrote about originality in storytelling.
• Here are the posts for Deuce Bigalow and Dorm Daze, which discuss sequelitis.
• Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2 was nominated for Worst Screenplay, Worst Director, Worst Supporting Actor, and Worst Picture at the 2005 Golden Raspberry Awards.
• Here is the link to the 50^th week retrospective.
• If you have any suggestions for future Sunday “Bad” Movies, there is a comments section below where you can put them.  Or you can go to my Twitter and tell me there.