By Connor Carlbom
Aurum Staff
Alright, before you jump to conclusions, let me explain why I’ve seen this movie. In case you couldn’t tell by my love for Troll 2, I love to watch crap. Bad movies can oftentimes be far funnier than any real comedy could ever hope to be, so while deciding what B-grade schlock-fest my friends and I would be watching one day, we came across Super Babies: Baby Geniuses 2. I already knew the film’s reputation; it is currently #1 on IMDB’s “Bottom 100” list, so I expected something great. Man, did I get more than what I bargained for.
Following bad movie tradition, Super Babies: Baby Geniuses 2 (or SBBG as I’ll call it from now on) has nothing to do with the original “Baby Geniuses”. I think I heard one of the babies from SBBG say that the main character in the first one is his cousin or something, and the main baby from the first one is back as a different character entirely, but besides that there is no connection.
The best plot synopsis I could come up with is this: there is a baby super hero named Kahuna that fights Nazis/Soviets and doesn’t age. He is helping our group of stereotypical babies stop an evil mastermind played by Jon Voight from launching an evil satellite that will control the minds of babies everywhere… because he is evil… no joke. The leader of the stereotype babies is named Archie. He has three other friends who help him on his epic adventure, and somewhere in there they become superheroes. I have seen worse plot-lines in a movie, but none of those films made it to theaters. This did.
A lot of kid’s movies nowadays utilize that creepy effect where they get an animal’s mouth to move by digitally warping the picture, but the animal continues to move around like it’s confused so the effect looks terrible. They use the same technique here, but it’s even worse because they tried to make the babies act like they are talking, and it ends up being really creepy. It doesn’t help that the rest of the adult actors also display this odd, almost Twilight Zone style of acting where nothing makes sense and it feels like you are in a dream the whole time. And then there is Jon Voight. Why he is in so many movies like this, nobody knows… Did he forget that he was a good actor? I’ve heard rumors that he started making movies like this to please his grandchildren or something like that, so starred as the villain in this and “Karate Dog.” Worst. Excuse. Ever.
I know some people out there will probably be like, “But Connor, this movie was made for kids; of course you aren’t going to like it.” Yeah, “Toy Story” was made for kids and it’s still great. I would not recommend allowing any child access to this film. It might seriously affect them later on in life. So before you decide to skip your babysitting duties and just let the kids watch whatever, make sure it isn’t Super Babies: Baby Geniuses 2.
