By Robert Scucci
| Published
There’s a saying among parents suggesting that all we want when our kids are born is for them to start walking and talking, and when that miracle finally happens, all we want is for them to sit down and shut up for a second. But when it comes to 1999’s Baby Geniuses, you’d wish these kids never started talking in the first place because their movements and facial expressions were clearly excavated from an uncanny valley in which nobody in their right mind would dare to explore.
Somehow commercially successful enough to generate a sequel, Baby Geniuses has zero redeeming qualities, and a 2 percent critical score on Rotten Tomatoes to back me up on this.
Baby Tricks And Kicks
Baby Geniuses centers on the Kinder Method, which involves abducting infants and toddlers from nearby orphanages and putting them through rigorous testing and training in order to figure out the secrets of the universe. Founded by Dr. Elena Kinder (Kathleen Turner) and Dr. Heep (Christopher Lloyd), their company, BabyCo has infinite access to technological resources used in their research leading to the discovery of Babytalk, a secret language used by babies that they’re desperately trying to crack in their pursuit of the scientific method.
Meanwhile, Robin (Kim Cattral) and Dan Bobbins (Peter MacNicol) operate a daycare out of their house with the help of their oafish janitor, Lenny (Dom DeLuise), and their defiant teenage employee, Dickie (Kyle Howard). Robin, who is the niece of Dr. Kinder and adoptive mother of a baby named Wit, doesn’t know that her son has a long-lost brother named Sly who lives under the care of Dr. Kinder and Dr. Heep as a subject of their program for baby geniuses.
When Sly switches places with Wit after a daring escape from Joyworld, an amusement park for children designed by Babyco, the Bobbins are first unaware of the little switcheroo, but Dr. Kinder is thrilled that she could use Wit in a double-blind study.
At this point, Sly and Wit are unaware of each other’s existence, but also somehow share a telepathic bond and quickly put two and two together.
None Of This Makes Sense
Rife with junk science and poorly placed diaper jokes, Baby Geniuses is a nauseating tale of biological impropriety under the guise of progress. Racing against the clock because baby geniuses apparently lose their abilities to do kung-fu and comprehend complex mathematics and linguistics once they learn how to talk like humans and “cross over,” the Bobbins, now knowing that they’re caring for the wrong child, pursue Dr. Kinder and Dr. Heep in search for answers, and their kidnapped child.
Watching Baby Geniuses
What’s most startling about Baby Geniuses is the ever-elusive “Babytalk,” which to me sounds like nothing more than American English that adults are incapable of hearing even though it’s made clear that Dan is able to discern their post-natal vocalizations with little to no effort for reasons that are never explained. Using digital animation to make talking babies possible, the dialogue is simply an elevated version of superimposing speaking mouths over babies who were filmed with their mouths closed, which makes everything seem so eerie and unnatural.
But still, Baby Geniuses is an interesting watch because apparently people wanted to see this movie. Grossing $36.5 million against its reported production budget of $12 million, it wouldn’t take long for a sequel known as Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2 to come to fruition, which somehow performed worse on the critical front than its predecessor (read: a big fat zero on Rotten Tomatoes).
As of this writing, Baby Geniuses isn’t available to stream, which is probably for the better. But if you want something to throw on in the background during some sort of ritual torture procedure, you can rent the title on-demand through Apple TV+, Prime Video, and Fandango At Home.
