Main Cast: Kathleen Turner, Christopher Lloyd, Kim Cattrall, Peter MacNicol, Dom DeLuise, Ruby Dee
Release Year: 1999
Country: US
Run Time: 94 minutes
MPAA Rating: PG
Plot
Dr. Elena Kinder (Kathleen Turner) is the highly visible chief executive of BABYCO, the world's largest manufacturer of baby products. The company funds orphanages across the world and just opened an indoor theme park for children adjacent to its corporate headquarters in Los Angeles. Unbeknownst to the public, Kinder, with the help of Dr. Heep (Christopher Lloyd), has been conducting a vast research program devoted to decrypting in secret labs deep beneath BABYCO's corporate campus the language that babies speak. It's said that Tibetans believe all babies are born with complete knowledge of the universe and the ability to speak to each other in an ancient language. However, once infants turn two years old, they lose this knowledge as they bond more closely with adults. To study this theory, Dr. Kinder has culled the smartest babies from her orphanages to be raised in a special development program in her private lab. As a test of developmental progress, she has separated a pair of twins, Sly and Witt. While Sly is raised within the lab, Witt has been adopted by Kinder's niece, Robin Bobbins (Kim Cattrall) and her husband Dan (Peter MacNicol), who run an old-fashioned day care and child research center. Sly manages to escape the center and finds his way to a shopping mall during Christmas. While eluding Kinder's henchmen, Sly stumbles across Witt; Witt is promptly mistaken for Sly and taken away, while Sly goes to the day care center with his new mother. The two boys, who develop an empathic link, must find each other and free the children from the research center before Dr. Kinder can smuggle them out of the country. ~ Ron Wells, All Movie Guide
Kyle Howard - Dickie; Leo Fitzgerald - Whit; Myles Fitzgerald - Whit; Gerry Fitzgerald - Whit; Joshua Ryan Evans - Baby Dance Double
Credit
Ken Goch - Art Director, Michael Roth - Art Director, Dorothy Koster-Paul - Casting, Betty Pecha Madden - Costume Designer, Bob Clark - Director, Stan Cole - Editor, Hank Paul - Executive Producer, David Saunders - Executive Producer, Jon Voight - Executive Producer, Paul Zaza - Composer (Music Score), Frank Pezza - Production Designer, Stephen M. Katz - Cinematographer, Steven Paul - Producer, Robert Zilliox - Set Designer, Josh Newman - Set Designer, Bruce Nyznik - Sound/Sound Designer, Robert Grasmere - Screen Story, Francisca Matos - Screen Story, Bob Clark - Screenwriter, Greg Michael - Screenwriter, Jacques Stroweis - Visual Effects Supervisor
Baby Geniuses is a 1999 action/comedy directed by Bob Clark, rated PG for crude humor and mild expletives and violence.
The film made a profit, earning US$27 million gross against a US$13 million budget. It was critically panned; it was ranked by leading film critic Roger Ebert as one of his most hated movies. Despite the negative reviews, the casting of Peter MacNicol and Kim Cattrall was regarded as the savior of the film.
Two scientists, Dr. Kinder (Kathleen Turner) and Dr. Heep (Christopher Lloyd) use genius baby studies to fund their Babyco theme park. At age two, the children are due to 'cross over', learn to talk, and forget their universal knowledge. One mischievous toddler, Sly, makes repeated attempts to escape the "Kinder" lab and one night, he actually succeeds. What Sly does not expect is to run into his twin, Whit, in a mall playground. Although Sly and Whit share a telepathic bond, they have no idea of each other's existence. While the guards from the lab capture Whit, mistake him for Sly, and take him back to the Kinder lab, Sly is taken home by Whit's adopted mother. After Dr. Kinder discovers the mix-up, she decides to do a cross evaluation on the twins. However, when she comes to Bobbin's Place, she realizes that Dan Bobbin can understand babies. After the attempts to retrieve Sly fail, Dr. Kinder decides to move the labs to Lichtenstein. The babies at Bobbin's Place hypnotize Lennie, the bus driver to drive to Kinder Labs. Once at the labs, Sly goes to the control room to set the robots from the theme park on the lab scientists. When the Bobbins return home, their natural daughter Carrie tells her father that the children are in the Kinder Labs. At the end of the fight Dr. Kinder captures Whit and takes him to the helicopter pad on the roof. Robin and Dan Bobbins chases them to the roof. Dr. Kinder gives Whit to a man on the helicopter. Dr. Kinder and Dan fight. Dan falls and hits his head. Robin fights Dr. Kinder. In the fight Dr. Kinder reveals that they are not related, but that Robin was adopted at age two. Just then police helicopters come. Sly and Whit come together on the roof to cross over. Some time later Dan awakens with his memory intact. He wants the secrets of life, but as the twins have crossed over they no longer know those secrets. Carrie, their sister, reveals that the secret of life is love.
