Cast:
Elisabeth Shue (Christina "Chris" Parker), Keith Coogan (Brad Anderson), Anthony Rapp (Daryl Coopersmith), Maia Brewton (Sarah Anderson), Penelope Ann Miller (Brenda), Bradley Whitford (Mike Todwell), Calvin Levels (Joe Gipp), George Newbern (Dan Lynch), John Chandler (Bleak), Ron Canada (Graydon), John Ford Noonan ("Handsome" John Pruitt), Albert Collins (Himself), and Vincent D'Onofrio (Dawson) Directed by Chris Columbus (#038 - Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief, #117 - Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, #118 - Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, #304 - Home Alone, #310 - Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, and #831 - Mrs. Doubtfire)
Review:
I do try to keep up with as many filmmakers as possible, particularly in tracking debut features. So here we are with Chris Columbus. Born to a coal miner and a factory worker in Spangler, Pennsylvania (but raised mostly in Ohio), he grew up with an interest in books, comics, and movies, which honed to his modest living. He studied at New York University but learned his key lesson due to a mistake that had him work in a factory for a summer that drove him to write above all else. He started to write screenplays in the 1980s, and Reckless was the first one bought for a director to make, albeit one that was a flop. However, his next script in Gremlins (1984) was a major hit that saw him receive further work for screenplays that led to The Goonies and Young Sherlock Holmes (both 1985). Adventures in Babysitting (1987) was written by David Simkins, and Columbus picked the script from the countless ones he read because he was fine with the small sense of scale it had. After the release of the film, he would follow it up with Heartbreak Hotel (1988), which was not quite as successful as this film with audiences, but then came an offer from John Hughes to direct a Christmas comedy with Home Alone (1990), and I think you know the rest (which included him later co-founding his own production company).
If you want, you could do an entire game of how many things seemed ripe for sitcoms. You've got 24-year-olds meant to be playing high school seniors (one of whom gets mistaken for a Playboy model for a few jokes, because, well...?), folks getting into wacky hijinks in tall buildings, a chase to fool the parents, and so on and on. The fact that the movie is set in Chicago as a presentation of folks from the suburbs getting into the big city all by themselves is probably the least surprising thing ever to happen in one of these teen comedies. Shue is at least delightful in the lead role, warm and engaging that suits the need of the film in the most basic element in engagement. Granted, her (and Whitford, most significantly) is probably a bit too close to the edge of being "young" enough to play high schoolers, but at least she makes the most of being the heart of the film in the ways that matter. The trio of Coogan-Rapp-Brewton is at least decent enough as kids to go along with Shue, in terms of trying to sell such cheap gags. The less said about the totally-hilariously panicky Miller, the better (oh look, a young Vincent D'Onofrio!). The film badly needs a more prominent threat than Chandler, who might as well be ripped from some other film about the city, which goes for Levels as well. I think your enjoyment of the film will depend on just how many twee things you can take for something that would make Weird Science (1985) blush in how average it all ends up being, right down to its climax involving a drawn-out sequence involving heights. I wish I could embrace the film, but there is something so corny about its entanglement that makes me reluctant to give credit beyond a few decent performances that come with hit-and-miss gags. It reminds me of the kid in the back of the classroom: it doesn't matter if he can sit still or not, the attempts at making a joke are going to feel the same no matter what the time of day it is. The most interesting sequence might be a blues one involving Albert Collins that sees an impromptu song that makes the most of being just as silly in setup as everything else by that point. Writing about the film and its runtime of 99 minutes seems fruitless in trying to beat down the point that it doesn't have enough foundation to back up its ambitions. It reminds me of Footloose (1984) in that regard. Columbus shows some promise with his first time here, but there are better ways to spend looking at someone's first film. As a whole, it lacks that certain type of magic beyond the paint-by-numbers stuff to make it worthy to recommend beyond for folks who are pretty familiar already with the time it was made for.
Overall, I give it 6 out of 10 stars.
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