Director: Ivan Reitman
Cast: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Penelope Ann Miller, Pamela Reed, Linda Hunt
Have I Seen it Before: Oh, definitely. I, too was six in 1990, so I’ll never not be the same age as these kids, no matter how old I get. I think the phrase “Mr. Kimble, are you all right?” is one of those top-five uttered phrases in my house. Oddly enough, I think I’ve probably seen it far more from a VHS-recorded broadcast on the NBC Sunday Night Movie in the mid-90s. It’s still weird to hear some of the characters swear mildly in a PG-13 sort of way. “Shove it up your ass” lives in my memory as “shove it” and “How did it feel to punch that son of a bitch” swaps out to “SOB.”
Did I Like It: As I started to type this review, the word “flawless” keeps floating through my head, even if that feels like something of a ridiculous word to bandy about in a film whose plot hinges on trope after trope after trope, when it isn’t pushed forward by bouts of food poisoning. But, what else is the film really aiming for? What’s more, the film manages to be surprisingly enlightened (minus a few moments where a large germanic man is making children march in coordination) on its views of early childhood education.
Schwarzenegger is aptly game, increasing his comic acumen that he all of a sudden revealed to everyone (by way of Reitman) in Twins (1988), and proves that he at least has less of an ego about his film persona, and in fact might simply be funnier than his contemporaries. Sure, Bruce Willis might have become famous with a comic persona, but it wore away as the years went on, give or take a The Whole Nine Yards (2000). Stallone can try to do an Oscar (1991) or, god-forbid a Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot (1992), but he never got anywhere close to being believably flustered by a comedic situation.