Honey, I Blew Up the Kid

Honey, I Blew Up the Kid
Theatrical release poster
Directed by Randal Kleiser
Produced by Dawn Steel
Edward S. Feldman
Screenplay by Garry Goodrow
Thom Eberhardt
Peter Elbling
Story by Garry Goodrow
Based on Characters by:
Stuart Gordon
Brian Yuzna
Ed Naha
Starring
Music by Bruce Broughton
Cinematography John Hora
Edited by Harry Hitner
Production
company
Distributed by Buena Vista Pictures
Release date
  • July 17, 1992 (1992-07-17)
Running time
 89 minutes
Country United States
Language English
Budget $40 million
Box office $76 million

Honey, I Blew Up the Kid is a 1992 American comedy science fiction film and the sequel to the 1989 film Honey, I Shrunk the Kids. Directed by Randal Kleiser and released by Walt Disney Pictures, the film stars Rick Moranis, Marcia Strassman, Robert Oliveri and Amy O'Neill, who reprise their roles as Wayne, Diane, Nick, and Amy Szalinski respectively, as well as newcomer Keri Russell as Mandy Park, Nick's love interest and babysitter of Adam, the Szalinskis' new two-year-old son, whose accidental exposure to Wayne's new industrial-sized growth machine causes him to gradually grow to enormous size. Made only three years after Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, this film is set three years after the events depicted in the previous film. It was filmed in 1991.

The antagonist to the Szalinskis is Dr. Charles Hendrickson (John Shea), who wants the giant Adam stopped at all costs and would like to take over Wayne's invention that is now owned by the major corporation they work for, which is in turn owned by the kind Clifford Sterling (Lloyd Bridges).

This film would be followed by one last sequel in 1997, this time a direct-to-video film, Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves. A TV show would also follow the film in 1997, called Honey, I Shrunk the Kids.

Plot

Four years after inventor Wayne Szalinski accidentally shrunk his and his neighbors' children, his family have moved to Nevada and have welcomed a new son, mischievous 2 1/2-year old Adam. Wayne’s wife Diane leaves on a Friday with their daughter Amy to help her settle for college, leaving Wayne to look after Adam and their teenage son Nick, who struggles with puberty. He develops a crush on Mandy Park, who Wayne later arranges to babysit Adam. The next day, Saturday, Wayne takes his sons to Sterling Labs, where he has constructed an advanced derivative of his shrink ray which could make objects grow. He tests it out on Adam’s toy Big Bunny. However, when Wayne and Nick’s backs are turned, Adam attempts to retrieve his toy and is zapped by the machine, which appears to short circuit and not enlarge the targeted object.

Back home, Adam and Big Bunny are exposed to electrical waves from the microwave oven and grow in size, now seven feet tall. Wayne and Nick try to take Adam back to the lab to reverse the process, but are caught by Wayne’s superior Doctor Charles Hendrickson, who dislikes Wayne, later discovering his folly. Diane returns home and discovers the truth, and she, Wayne and Nick have a hard time trying to take care of the large Adam. Later, Wayne and Diane drive to a warehouse and retrieve Wayne’s first prototype to turn Adam back to normal. When Mandy arrives to babysit Adam, she panics and faints. Nick then ties her to a chair and gags her so she cannot run away or scream. As Nick explains the situation to Mandy, Adam is exposed to a television’s electrical waves and grows to fourteen feet, before escaping through a wall.

Nick and Mandy search for him, but they and Adam are taken into custody, with the latter placed into a truck. Wayne and Diane return home, finding the smug Hendrickson waiting for them. He has summoned Clifford Sterling, the company chairman, with the plan to fire Wayne and experiment on Adam. Sterling arrives, praising Wayne when he admits his mistake and agrees to help Adam, firing the rude Hendrickson as well. At the same time, Adam's truck passes by high voltage lines, exposing Adam to more electrical waves and causing him to grow even larger, escaping confinement. Adam mistakes Nick and Mandy for toys and puts them in his overalls pocket before headng for Las Vegas, pursued by his family and the authorities. Wayne and Sterling figure out the cause of Adam's growth and realize that exposure to Vegas's neon lights will make Adam grow bigger than ever.

Hendrickson turns to board director Terrence Wheeler, who wants to start a boardroom coup to take Sterling out of power. With his permission, Hendrickson forcefully boards a military helicopter to attempt to tranquilize Adam, despite the pilot's reluctance. Wayne is determined to use his shrink machine to shrink Adam back to normal, but needs Adam to stand still for twelve seconds so he can be shrunk. At first, he tries using Big Bunny to pacify Adam, but it backfires when Wayne suggests his son takes a nap (which he hates). After wandering through Las Vegas, Adam saves the escaped Nick and Mandy in a sports car from falling off the Kicking Lady of Glitter Gulch (Fremont Street) and puts the car inside his pocket again, before pursuing an ice cream truck driven by Marshall Brooks to distract him away from the city. However, he grows to a max height of 112 feet and heads towards the Hard Rock Café, where he plays the lit up guitar. Hendrickson arrives in the helicopter shooting tranquilizer cartridges at Adam, hitting the guitar instead and causing him to drop the guitar, crying from electric shock. Diane convinces Wayne to enlarge her so she can get to Adam, preventing Hendrickson from harming her son and getting Adam to stand still for the needed time period for the shrinking ray to work. Wayne then fires the shrink ray, returning Adam and Diane to normal size, but Nick and Mandy are gone. Hendrickson arrives, attempting to justify his actions, but an unforgiving Diane punches him in the face.

In the closing scene, Nick and Mandy are revealed to have been shrunk inside the car from inside Adam's pocket to the size of insects. They are quickly found by Wayne, who decides to give them a few minutes of privacy before unshrinking them. The only problem left now is how to shrink the gigantic Big Bunny back to normal size.

Cast

  • Rick Moranis as Wayne Szalinski, a wacky inventor.
  • Marcia Strassman as Diane Szalinski, Wayne's wife.
  • Amy O'Neill as Amy Szalinski, Wayne and Diane's daughter.
  • Robert Oliveri as Nick Szalinski, Wayne and Diane's teenage son.
  • Daniel & Joshua Shalikar as Adam Szalinski, Wayne and Diane's two-year-old son.
  • John Shea as Dr. Charles Hendrickson, Wayne's insolent boss.
  • Lloyd Bridges as Clifford Sterling, the president of Sterling Labs.
  • Keri Russell as Mandy Park, Adam's babysitter and Nick's love interest.
  • Ron Canada as Marshall Brooks
  • Gregory Sierra as Terence Wheeler, a board member at Sterling Labs who is allied with Hendrickson.
  • Michael Milhoan as Captain Ed Myerson, a military pilot who reluctantly pilots Hendrickson to confront Adam.
  • Leslie Neale as Constance Winters
  • Julia Sweeney as a Nosy neighbor
  • Linda Carlson as another Nosy neighbor

Production

The film was not originally written as a sequel to Honey, I Shrunk the Kids. Originally titled Big Baby, it was about a toddler who grew to giant size by a freak accident involving a growth ray and eventually terrorized Las Vegas in a non-violent, yet Godzillaesque way. Disney saw the possibilities of making this into a sequel to Honey and rewrote the script. Whereas most of the characters from Big Baby were rewritten as characters from Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, there was no character in the original that "Amy Szalinski" could replace, so she is seen going away to college in the beginning of the film.

Prior to this, sequel development was offered to screenwriter and teacher David Trottier.[1]

Casting

Rick Moranis returns from the original film to portray "wacky" inventor Wayne Szalinski. Also returning is his wife, Diane, who is portrayed by Marcia Strassman. Amy O'Neill and Robert Oliveri return to portray the Szalinski children, Amy and Nick. Nick has matured in his personality and interests since the last film. He is still considered "nerdy", but has taken more interest in girls and guitars.

Casting director Renee Rousselot searched over 1,000 small children for someone to portray Adam, the newest addition to the Szalinski clan. She searched for mostly three- to four-year-old boys because a younger child was thought to be problematic. She came across twins Daniel and Joshua Shalikar, from New Jersey and immediately cast them in December 1990. One twin would act in the morning, while the other was eating lunch or taking a nap. Baby consultant Elaine Hall Katz and director Randal Kleiser would plan the twins' scenes a week in advance. Tom Smith reported that, "On his own, Dan was almost too adventuresome to repeat one move, and Josh seemed very cautious. Put them together and they could do anything." However, the film did have difficulties in working with such small children, and one crew member later remarked it was "like playing hopscotch on hot coals".[2] At the time, the Shalikar twins were scheduled to appear in two more Honey films. They did appear once, but were recast in Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves.

In the film, Nick has a crush on a girl named Mandy Park, played by Keri Russell in her first feature film. John Shea portrays Dr. Charles Hendrickson, who is scheming to get Wayne's control of the project, while Lloyd Bridges portrays Clifford Sterling, the owner of Sterling Labs.

Fred Rogers and Richard Simmons are also seen in videos in TV scenes in the film.

Direction

Randal Kleiser, of Grease and White Fang fame, was chosen to direct this film, replacing Joe Johnston. Kleiser would return to film with the cast in the 3D show, Honey, I Shrunk the Audience, which was at several Disney parks until 2010. Like its predecessor, and Grease, Honey, I Blew Up the Kid had animated opening credits.

Production began on June 17, 1991. Filming took place in Simi Valley, California for the parts involving the Szalinskis' house. Also used extensively was well known places in Las Vegas such as the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino, the Mirage Hotel, and Fremont Street.[3] The water park where Nick worked and where Mandy is first introduced is Wet 'n Wild in Las Vegas. It closed in 2004, twelve years after the film.

Special effects were used heavily throughout the film, but some were not. When Adam knocks down his bedroom's door, production designer Leslie Dilley created a set with miniature furniture about four feet away from the camera, while the adult actors would be about fifteen feet away. Kleiser recalled, "Danny was generally better at improvising and fresh reactions. Josh was better at following directions, so we would alternate."[4]

Lawsuit before release

Disney would later find itself the subject of a lawsuit as a result of the film. The suit was filed in 1991 by Mark Goodson Productions director Paul Alter, who claimed to have come up with the idea of an oversized toddler after babysitting his granddaughter and watching her topple over building blocks. He wrote a screenplay titled "Now, That's a Baby!", which had not been made into a film but had received some sort of treatment beforehand.[5] Alter claimed there were several similarities between the movie and his script, which consisted of the baby daughter of two scientists falling victim to a genetic experiment gone wrong instead of an enlarging ray. The case went to trial in 1993, with the jury finding in Alter's favor. Disney was forced to pay $300,000 in damages.[6]

Reception

Box office

The film opened on July 17, 1992 to 2,492 theatres, almost twice as many as the first film. It was No. 1 on opening weekend with $11,083,318, and grossed $58,662,452 in the U.S.[7]

Critical

The film has received generally mixed reviews. It has a "rotten" rating of 39% at Rotten Tomatoes based on 18 reviews.[8] Desson Thompson and Hal Hinson, both writers from the Washington Post, agreed that the film was "a one-joke film". Roger Ebert, from the Chicago Sun-Times, said that Adam "didn't participate in the real world but simply toddled around".[9]

Soundtrack

Honey, I Blew Up the Kid
Soundtrack album by Bruce Broughton
Released 1992, 2017 (expansion)
Genre Soundtrack
Length 39:57 (original) 69:34 (expansion)
Label Intrada Records
Producer Bruce Broughton

Intrada Records released the record in 1992, in time for the film's release. The score was composed and conducted by Bruce Broughton, who would return to provide the score for Honey, I Shrunk the Audience. "Stayin Alive" by the Bee Gees appears in the film. So does "Loco-Motion" by Carole King, Gerry Goffin, and "Ours If We Want It" written by Tom Snow and Mark Mueller. The soundtrack album consists of just the score. In 2017 the label released an expanded edition included Broughton's score for Off His Rockers, the animated short that preceded the film in cinemas.

1992 Track listing

  1. "Main Title" – 3:03
  2. "To the Lab" – 1:53
  3. "Adam Gets Zapped" – 0:35
  4. "Putting on Weight?" – 1:19
  5. "Macrowaved" – 3:15
  6. "How'd She Take It?" – 3:11
  7. "Sneaking Out" – 1:12
  8. "Don't Touch That Switch!" – 0:26
  9. "The Bunny Trick" – 2:41
  10. "Get Big Bunny" – 4:11
  11. "Clear the Streets!" – 3:00
  12. "Car Flight" – 4:38
  13. "Ice Cream!" – 3:47
  14. "Look at That Mother!" – 2:26
  15. "That's All, Folks!" – 4:20

2017 Track listing

  1. Off His Rockers: Music From The Cartoon Short (4:27)
  2. Main Title (3:10)
  3. Meet The Szalinskis (1:04)
  4. Just Like Your Dad (1:36)
  5. To The Lab (1:58)
  6. Us Guys (1:02)
  7. Back To The Lab (1:14)
  8. Adam Gets Zapped (0:35)
  9. Putting On Weight? (1:24)
  10. Macrowaved (3:20)
  11. Hi Guys, I’m Home (0:57)
  12. How’d She Take It? (3:17)
  13. The Playpen (1:10)
  14. Sneaking Out (1:17)
  15. The Warehouse (2:07)
  16. Don’t Touch That Switch! (0:26)
  17. He’s Out And He’s Bigger (0:34)
  18. The Bunny Trick (2:55)
  19. Truck Ride (0:35)
  20. Hendrickson Gets Sacked (0:46)
  21. Get Big Bunny (4:18)
  22. No Naaap (1:47)
  23. Clear The Streets! (3:01)
  24. Car Flight (4:43)
  25. Ice Cream! (3:53)
  26. Look At That Mother! (2:30)
  27. Diane Decks Hendrickson (0:51)
  28. End Credits – That’s All, Folks! (4:25)
  29. Mandy? (0:38)
  30. How Was Your Flight? (0:14)
  31. Starting To Get Big (0:17)
  32. Wayne Gets Fired (0:22)
  33. It’s Not A Morphis (0:09)
  34. The Crate (0:15)
  35. He’s Headed For Vegas (0:10)
  36. Adam Catches The Car (0:20)
  37. Can’t We Go Faster? (0:20)
  38. Adam Cries (0:15)
  39. Mandy’s Room (Rock Source #2) (1:36)
  40. T.V. Commercial Source (0:17)
  41. End Credits – That’s All, Folks! (Alternate) (4:44)

Home media

Honey, I Blew Up the Kid was first released on VHS and Laserdisc on January 6, 1993. The film was released on a bare-bones DVD in 2002. While the VHS release contained no bonus material besides a music video, the laserdisc release contains the 1992 animated short film, Off His Rockers directed by Barry Cook, which accompanied the theatrical release. To date, Off His Rockers has only appeared on the laserdisc release of this film, making its availability rare, although the short can be viewed on YouTube.

The film was released on VHS in 1997, alongside its predecessor to coincide with the release of the third film in the series, Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves.

References

  1. ↑ http://www.scriptmag.com/reviews/tool-reviews/how-the-writers-store-changed-my-life
  2. ↑ Steve Daley (August 7, 1992). "Honey, the Kids Coulda Blown the Movie". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved 2009-09-21.
  3. ↑ Levitan, Corey (2009-11-08). "Las Vegas is Cinema City". Las Vegas Review-Journal. Archived from the original on 2009-11-12.
  4. ↑ Steve Daley (May 22, 1992). "Blowing Up Baby". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved 2009-09-21.
  5. ↑ "Disney, the Mouse Betrayed" by Peter and Rochelle Schweitzer
  6. ↑ Welkos, Robert W. (1993-11-13). "Jury Tells Disney to Pay $300,000 in 'Honey' Case : Movies: A game show producer who claimed his treatment was used as the basis for 'Honey, I Blew Up the Kid' wins suit. Disney says the film was a sequel to 'Honey, I Shrunk the Kids.'". Los Angeles Times.
  7. ↑ "Honey, I Blew Up the Kid". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved December 14, 2012.
  8. ↑ "Honey, I Blew Up the Kid Movie Reviews". Rotten Tomatoes. Flixster. Retrieved December 21, 2012.
  9. ↑ "Roger Ebert's Report on 'Honey, I Blew Up the Kid'". Chicago Sun-Times. 2000. Retrieved 2009-09-21.
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