Adventures in Babysitting (1987)
The Cast
Elisabeth Shue .... Chris Parker
Maia Brewton .... Sara Anderson
Keith Coogan .... Brad Anderson
Anthony Rapp .... Daryl Coopersmith
Calvin Levels .... Joe Gipp
Vincent D'Onofrio .... Dawson/'Thor'
Penelope Ann Miller .... Brenda
Bradley Whitford .... Mike Todwell
Ron Canada .... Graydon
Lolita Davidovich .... Sue Ann
For every movie review that I write, I do a little bit of background research on the movie, mostly on IMDB or Wikipedia. After watching this movie - a movie I haven't seen in almost 20 years - I came online to do the research and was horrified at what I found. Apparently someone is remaking this movie for release in 2008. This is the worst news I've heard all year (so far, it's bound to get much worse). Hollywood filmmakers are apparently so out of original ideas that now they're remaking cult films that didn't have the broadest of appeal to begin with. Who is this intended remake supposed to appeal to? Younger parents probably wouldn't take their children to go see it as they probably have vague memories of some of the material in the original. Teenagers aren't going to go see a movie with the word "babysitting" in the title unless it's some sort of soft-core porn slasher movie.
I can understand the filmmaker's enthusiasm in wanting to capture the wonderful enthusiasm and entertainment of the original Adventures, but that was more a case of a perfect lightning strike. Written by David Simkins and the first movie directed by hitmaker Chris Columbus, it features a very young Elisabeth Shue eager to please her growing audience, as well as a relatively talented supporting cast of young actors who are practically nothing today. I'm sorry, but it's the truth. Sure, Anthony Rapp might've played the jealous religious TA in Road Trip, but I only know that because I clicked on his IMDB name. He was also in Rent apparently, which I guess makes him eligible for a tag in this community.
Anyways, for those of you not in the know, Adventures in Babysitting is based on one night in the life of Chris Parker (Shue). Disappointed after her boyfriend - a very young & tall Bradley Whitford - cancels their date for the evening, she reluctantly takes a babysitting job over at the Andersons. She's there mainly to watch Sara (Brewton) - a Thor-obsessed preteen - but ends up having to watch over Brad (Coogan) as well, since his puppy love for her makes him cancel on hanging out at his wacky buddy Daryl's (Rapp) house. Chris gets a call from her friend Brenda (Miller) who's in hysterics at the bus station downtown, forcing Chris to gather up the kids and make the trek to go save Brenda. Then a lot of other wacky ridiculous things happen, all of which seem more believable than anything I saw in The Da Vinci Code, including Tom Hanks' hair.
This certainly isn't the best movie ever made, or even the most original of premises, but for some reason it works amazingly well. The exuberance of the young cast, the desire of a first-time director, the inclusion of a very young Vincent D'Onofrio as Thor (someone make that movie right n... nah, Thor's a homo) and everything getting strung together in a wacky chain of events is just pure guilty entertainment. Nothing in this movie is revolutionary or ground-breaking, it's just everything falling into place at the right time for highly entertaining results.
3.5 / 5