Honey, I Blew Up The Kid

A worthy if often predictable sequel (1992) to Honey, I Shrunk the Kids that once again suggests a Joe Dante project developed by othersin this case writers Thom Eberhardt, Peter Elbling, and Garry Goodrow and director Randal Kleiser (White Fang). The setting is Las Vegas and environs, where a brilliant but absentminded, gadget-happy scientist (Rick Moranis) accidentally causes his two-year-old son (played by the twins Daniel and Joshua Shalikar) to grow to a height of seven feet and upward (eventually topping out at more than 100 feet), terrorizing everyone with some fair-to-middling special effects. Credibility is strained by the safe bet that no one will get killed, even though the near deaths are so plentiful that the plot comes to resemble a tricked-up theme park ride. Still, the allegorical possibilities of infantile innocence run amok (particularly as a view of this country in relation to the remainder of the globe) are amusing and potent, and the cast (also including Marcia Strassman as the kid’s mother, Robert Oliveri as his older brother, Lloyd Bridges, John Shea, and Keri Russell) does a good-natured job in holding up its end of the bargain. (JR)

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