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"SUPERBABIES: BABY GENIUSES 2"
(2004) (Jon Voight, Scott Baio) (PG)

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QUICK TAKE:
Comedy: Recalling the original film's plot, babies in Los Angeles have their own language and join with a super-heroic seven-year-old to fight off an evil German now living in Hollywood who means to take over the world by way of a satellite uplink.
PLOT:
Media mogul Bill Biscane (JON VOIGHT) aspires to "world domination" via a mind-altering device sent through television. Ambitious Stan Bobbins (SCOTT BAIO) and his wife Jean (VANESSA ANGEL) unknowingly agree to help the villain, by becoming partners in his scheme to launch his network. (Stan is brother to the first film's Dan [PETER MacNICOL] pictured here in a framed photo on Stan's desk).

Together, the Bobbins run an elite daycare center called BobbinsWorld, where four babies in particular -- Archie (MICHAEL and MAX ILES), Quentin Finkleman (JORDAN and JARED SCHEIDERMAN), Alex (JOSHUA and MAXWELL LOCKHART) and Rosita (MAIA and KEANA BASTIDAS) -- join with the superhero, Kahuna (LEO, MYLES, and GERRY FITZGERALD, returned from the first film) to protect "all the children of the world."

Biscane and Kahuna's previous encounter is revealed in a flashback narrated by Archie. In "East Berlin, 1962," Kahuna saves German children from a barracks-like orphanage. Biscane, then named Captain Kane and dressed like a Nazi, instructs his armed guards to stop the child, but he bests them with gadgets and mighty fighting skills (the last initiated when he drinks a glowing neon-green fluid from his baby bottle and his arm and chest muscles bulge out). Kane swears revenge against Kahuna.

Back in present Los Angeles, Stan and Jean remain clueless when Biscane shows up with minions. One of them, Crowe (PETER WINGFIELD) loses a CD that contains the mind-control data (to be sent out through a children's TV show), and it lands in a stroller bearing the four babies, and piloted by Stan's teenaged niece Kylie (SKYLER SHAYE). Kahuna shows his new friends his secret lair and gizmos (including holograms). He calls Stan and Jean, and lies to them, saying they are in San Diego and being looked after by a policeman, who appears on the telephone video screen as one of Kahuna's holograms.

Kylie meets Kahuna's assistant Zack (JUSTIN CHATWIN), who explains Kahuna's back story: Kahuna's scientist father (BARRY GREENE), working in East Berlin, made a serum that the child accidentally ingested as a baby. Kahuna's older brother resents him. The father dies, and Kahuna pledges to carry on his vision of helping children all over the world. Because he can never grow up, he is "the Peter Pan of babies." Back in present day, Kahuna and Biscane eventually have a showdown, with assistance from the babies and Stan and Jean.

OUR TAKE: 0 out of 10
Given the absolute dreck of "Baby Geniuses," not to mention the critical drubbing it received, you might wonder why Bob Clark has made a second installment, five years later. And you may still wonder, even after watching the sequel, as it only reinforces what you already know: today's so-called "family fare" will go to dire exploitative depths to make a buck.

That said, "SuperBabies: Baby Geniuses 2" is surprisingly cynical, as it incorporates this very theme into its narrative. The villain is a Nazi (somehow alive and kicking in East Berlin 1962) who remakes himself into a U.S. media mogul, plotting "world domination" by way of a mind control device sent through a kids' show on cable television (This program features a goofy, Barney-reminiscent frog in a top hat, played by Alfonso Quijada, singing nonsense and annoying adults, as a "data stream" insinuates itself into kiddies' brains, and they are inclined to buy the Nazi-turned-mogul's merchandise). The collapse of fascism and corporate greed is hardly a new idea, but the extreme stereotyping makes it feel even older. Worse, he's played by Jon Voight, who surely must have something better to do with his time.

The film begins as the titular babies -- Archie (Michael and Max Iles), Quentin Finkleman (Jordan and Jared Scheiderman), Alex (Joshua and Maxwell Lockhart) and Rosita (Maia and Keana Bastidas) -- entertain themselves at an upscale L.A. daycare center run by the Bobbins, Jean (Vanessa Angel) and Stan (Scott Baio) (Stan makes a passing reference to his brother Dan [Peter MacNicol], star of the first movie, now appearing only as a snapshot framed on Stan's desk).

Stan is determined to improve profits by partnering with Bill Biscane (Voight), who has a very dark history, revealed almost as soon as his name is dropped in a story that Archie tells his peers (as in the first film, the babies talk to one another, and adults don't get it, though Jean keeps insisting that they are "communicating" while Stan calls his charges "test marketing subjects").

Archie's story sets up the film's primary opposition, between Biscane (called Captain Kane back in "East Berlin, 1962") and Kahuna (played by the stars of "Baby Geniuses," triplets Gerry, Leo, and Myles Fitzgerald), eternally seven years old and possessed of mighty superpowers. His apparently legendary first encounter with Kane/Biscane takes the form of a "great escape," complete with a score lifted from Elmer Bernstein, or perhaps "Hogan's Heroes."

Breaking into an orphanage run by Kane, Kahuna "busts out" the children who thank him with smiles and hugs, as he turns to face down Kane's jackbooted security detail. The fight is a rout, the child besting his elders easily and in slapstick style, going so far as to nyuck-nyuck one uniformed assailant, slapping his face and poking his eyes.

The babies listening to the story appreciate the entertainment, but don't believe in Kahuna the way Archie does. But when the daycare center is invaded by Biscane's minions -- all dressed in black and wearing slick communication headsets -- Kahuna shows up to prevent the mind-control plot, eventually engaging the babies in his mission, along with their primary babysitter, Kylie (Voight's goddaughter Skyler Shaye).

This conflict is exacerbated when Biscane's number one, Crowe (Peter Wingfield), accidentally drops a crucial disk into the babies' stroller. This initiates repeated chase and fight scenes, Kahuna outsmarting the villains at every turn, with the help of an array of gadgets, a vehicle that transforms from a car to a helicopter, and a hidden headquarters beneath the "Hollywood" sign.

Here Kahuna meditates on a floating rug and communicates with his comrade-in-good-deeds Whoopi Goldberg (she appears on screen, discussing the Thai children they've helped to graduate from Yale), the babies are treated to holographic images (including an elephant, bear, and lion), and Kylie meets and develops a crush on Zack (Justin Chatwin), whom Kahuna rescued from an orphanage and who now serves him as loyal computer tech.

While Biscane and Crowe are upfront about their snidely ambitions, the film's other adults become increasingly annoying: they're so distracted by Stan's efforts to make money (and his partnership with Biscane) that they seem incapable of looking after their young charges.

This is especially apparent when Kahuna calls them from his lair, using a holographic image of a policeman to make them believe the babies and Kylie are in good hands in San Diego (!). Kylie "walked too far" with the stroller, goes the lie, and then she and the babies accidentally boarded a bus to San Diego by accident. Stan and Jean, Archie's parents as well as the other babies' daytime guardians, accept this story without much question, agreeing to let the babies stay with the "policeman" overnight.

Even more disturbing, perhaps, is the complete omission of all other parents, who would, presumably, be "ethnic" (Finkleman being Jewish, Rosita Latina, and Alex black). Where are these adults when their toddlers are off gallivanting with bad guys and superheroes?

With its feeble effects and cheesy set design and props, "SuperBabies" is, on one level, so obviously incompetent that its lapses in plot and character seem rather par for the course. Still, such utter silliness is distracting. While the digital baby lips are improved over "Baby Geniuses," otherwise, the sequel is as lacking in cleverness and imagination as its precursor. The film rates as a 0 out of 10.




Reviewed August 24, 2004 / Posted August 27, 2004


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