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by Willie Waffle

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 Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2

While talking animals are always funny, talking babies, like the ones in Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2, are just creepy. It's one thing if we can hear their inner thoughts, like in Look Who's Talking, but moving mouths is suggestive of The Exorcist (the good one, not the cruddy prequel from last week). I kept waiting for the Superbabies' heads to start spinning around with pea soup flying everywhere. Sadly, this would have been an improvement.

Baio and Vanessa Angel star as Stan and Jean - operators of Bobbin's World Day Care. While Stan is obsessed with a new business deal, Jean is starting to notice how the babies communicate with each other. Of course they do, but we learned that in the first movie, Baby Geniuses.

In Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2, our pint sized leads are all talking about the mystical Kahuna - a superhero baby part 007/part Superman/part Batman, who goes around the world saving children in every corner of the globe. For over 50 or 60 years, Kahuna has been battling his arch nemesis, Kane (Jon "I've Hit Rock Bottom and I Can't Get Up" Voight), who wants to take over the world and hates children. Now, Kahuna is on Kane's trail and wants to destroy his latest plan for world domination, but he needs the help of the talking babies Archie, Finkelman, Rosita and Alex.

Can the superbabies topple the evil Kane before he takes over the world? Can you make it through the ENTIRE movie without walking out in disgust?

After starring in this movie, a Joanie Loves Chachi reunion special must look pretty good to Scott Baio.  Even a Charles In Charge pot luck supper with Willie Aames's special brownies would be a better option than this.  Put aside the ludicrous nature of the film, because we know this is ridiculous even by movie standards, Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2 is laughably bad and outright incompetently made at times. For example, fight scenes between Kahuna and adults are obviously done with wires and painfully slow as if all of the actors and stunt people have weights in their pants. Add to that a script full of horrendous supposedly funny throw away lines like, "I'm a small fry with a big attitude," or "fasten your seat belts, it's going to be a bumpy ride," or, the worst of them, "see ya, wouldn't want to be ya," which are supposed to be filled with attitude and reminiscent of big action movie stars like Schwarzenegger or Stallone, but still sound just as stupid coming out of the mouths of babes.

Can it get worse? Sure it can, when director Bob Clarke and editor Stan Cole have trouble maintaining continuity like the magically appearing, plot-crucial CD-ROM that shows up when needed without regard to where it was seen last, or when they show us the Kahuna's creation by telling us in the story how he stayed baby size after an important event, however, Kahuna, who we have been watching for about an hour at this point, is more toddler size and obviously bigger than the baby used in the creation scene. Finally, let's not forget writer Gregory Poppen inserting a gratuitous scene towards the end of the movie as a cheap grab at our heart strings even though it doesn't fit, practically comes out of nowhere, and couldn't have been more ham-handed if it was supposed to be a parody.

The horror! The horror! Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2 even has cameos from Whoopi Goldberg and O-Town. Now, I am positive the movie couldn't be worse. I didn't think I would have to do this again in 2004, but Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2 deserves the lowest rating in the history of WaffleMovies.com. Who would have thought I would be reminiscing about the carefree days of The Olsen Twins movie?

-1 Waffle (out of 4)

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