Baby Geniuses

Baby Geniuses

It is easy to create a film that is not good, but “Baby Geniuses” manages to be bad on a grand scale. It also confirms my darkest suspicion: babies are only cute when they’re being babies. When portrayed as tiny adults (on greeting cards, in TV commercials and especially in this movie), it is so wrong that every human instinct rebels.

Babies can be fun as movie characters. “Look Who’s Talking” (1989) was an amusing movie because we heard what the baby was thinking. “Baby’s Day Out” (1994), with its fearless baby setting Joe Mantegna’s pants on fire, had its moments. But at least those were more or less real babies. “Baby Geniuses” features toddlers who talk like corporate raiders, plot and scheme like B-movie villains, disco dance like John Travolta and kick adults around with karate moves. This is not right.

Kathleen Turner stars as a woman who believes babies can talk to each other if they’re allowed to finish their sentences. She finances an underground lab overseen by Christopher Lloyd to crack the code. Her inspiration comes from Tibetan beliefs about children having Universal Knowledge up until the time they learn to speak at which point their brains wipe clean.

This is an ancient concept, best expressed by Wordsworth when he wrote of how “Heaven lies about us in our infancy.” If I were allowed to quote the whole poem instead of finishing this review, believe me, we’d all be happier. But duty calls: The movie involves a genius baby named Sly who escapes from the lab and tries to organize his fellow toddlers into revolt against the adult world order.

At one point there’s even a closeup of little Sly on a disco floor dressed in Tony Manero’s white suit from “Saturday Night Fever” dancing his heart out to “Stayin’ Alive,” which had me pawing under my seat for the bag my Subway Gardenburger came in, just in case I felt a sudden need to recycle it.

Every time these babies talk to each other, something happens visually that makes it appear as if their lips are in synch (think of those talking frogs in the Budweiser commercials). And when they do things that babies don’t usually do (hurl adults into the air, for example), you stop following the story and start looking for the camera trick.

There’s only one way this movie could have worked: The babies should have been really smart. After all, according to their own theory, they come into this world “trailing clouds of glory” (again Wordsworth: The man knew whereof he spoke). They possess Universal Knowledge. So shouldn’t they sound at least a little like Jesus? Or Aristotle? Or Wayne Dyer? But no.

They arrive on this mortal coil (Shakespeare) from that level “higher than the sphery chime” (Milton), and we expect their speech to flow with “heavenly eloquence” (Dryden). Yet when they open their mouths, what comes out? “Diaper gravy,” which is said four times in the film alone, according to Cleland.

Yes, they talk like little wise guys using insipid potty-mouth dialogue based on insult humor. This is further proof of my long-standing belief that the single greatest influence on modern American culture has been Don Rickles.

Watch Baby Geniuses For Free On Gomovies.