Baby's Day Out Reviews

John Hughes reworks the HOME ALONE formula yet again with BABY'S DAY OUT. This violent, predictable kiddie saga follows a baby on the loose in the big city, pursued by three would-be kidnappers who repeatedly get the ca-ca beaten out of them. "Baby Bink" Cotwell IV (Adam and Jacob Worton) loves a picture book called Baby's Day Out, the story of a baby's first visit to the big city. When he's kidnapped by three bumbling crooks--Eddie (Joe Mantegna), Norbert (Joe Pantoliana), and Veeko (Brian Haley)--Bink has the opportunity to recreate his favorite adventure story in real life. He escapes from the crooks' hideout by crawling out a window and onto the roof. In pursuit, Eddie gets hit in the head and crotch, and falls off the roof. This gives Bink time to escape into downtown Chicago. While Bink spends time in a department store, the crooks scour the streets. Bink ends up in a cab that takes him to the zoo, where he crawls into the gorilla cage. When the crooks try to pull Bink out, the gorilla thrashes them. Bink heads to the park, where Eddie recaptures him. When Eddie is stopped and questioned by two policemen, Bink sets Eddie's crotch on fire and escapes. The crooks follow Bink to a high-rise construction site, where he crawls around on the girders, high above the city. Veeko and Norbert take some more lumps and fall off the building, while Eddie is left hanging from a hook on a crane. Meanwhile, back at the Cotwell mansion, Bink's mother Laraine (Lara Flynn Boyle) comes to realize that she has never valued her son as much as she should have, and swears to change when he returns. When the police report that a lone baby has been sighted at the store, the zoo, and the construction site, Bink's nanny Gilbertine (Cynthia Nixon) realizes that Bink is acting out scenes from his favorite book. Since the fictional baby ended up at a retirement home, they look for Bink at a veterans' residence, where they find him. Bink leads the police to his kidnappers' hideout, where they're arrested. Writer-producer John Hughes knows how much kids love sadistic humor, and heretofore he's made a lot of money supplying it. In the two HOME ALONE movies, and even in DENNIS THE MENACE, Hughes took time to establish a child character before putting him in comic jeopardy; here, he literally cuts to the chase. Baby Bink isn't a character; he's just a cherubic innocent moving through a world that is as oblivious of him as he is of its dangers. Consequently, there's nothing here for kids--let alone adults--to identify with. The movie has one joke--a kick in the crotch--and its mind-numbing recapitulations should bore even children. Director Patrick Read Johnson tries to enliven the proceedings with unusual camera moves, odd point-of-view angles, and extreme close-ups, but what he needs is a script with some substance. And just what is Joe Mantegna doing in this movie, anyway?