Rated PG
Starring Rick Moranis, Matt Frewer, Marcia Strassman, Kristine Sutherland, Thomas Wilson Brown, Jared Rushton, Amy O' Neill, Robert Oliveri
Directed by Joe Johnston
The Story:
Frazzled inventor Wayne Szalinski (Moranis) is trying to perfect his shrinking machine. While he is away pitching the proposal, an errant baseball from the neighbor kids, causes the machine to actually work. Unfortunately, it shrinks the Thompson kids (Brown& Rushton) as well as the Szalinski kids (O'Neill & Oliveri). Now the size of ants, the kids will have to survive and make it back to the house and hope that Wayne can get the machine to work again and bring them back to full size.
Another of the 25th Anniversary movies from 1989.
This one is often overlooked when looking at the cinema classics from that year, but it's not a bad effort.
Before CGI ruled the day, this is a throwback to having giant props and stop motion to make the kids seem small.
Moranis gets the manic father routine down pat, complemented by Frewer as the macho (sorta) dad next door who is the polar opposite.
However most of the film is put on the kids to survive their situations, such as the dangers of going through the backyard to get back home.
I never truly cared for the scorpion scene in the movie. 25 years later, it still seems out of place and designed for emotional manipulation.
Otherwise, aside from that scene, I've got no problems with the rest of the film.
It was the feature directorial debut of Joe Johnston. A great first effort, and he's had a fairly successful career since then, my favorite being Captain America: The First Avenger.
So if you've got some kids that have never seen it, give it a whirl and see what they think.
Now available for streaming on Netflix as of this writing.
Final Grade: B
Rewatchability/Purchase Factor: It's been at least a decade since I had seen it. While dated in effects, it's still a pretty good story and a great reminder of how fun Rick Moranis was in the movies.
No comments:
Post a Comment