Honey, I Shrunk the Gimmick
It’s not about the shrink ray.
Some movies should never have become franchises. That strong first film was the entire story, and that should have been that.
Case in point: Honey, I Shrunk the Kids. Good family movie. Solid all around. No need for a sequel, let alone two. And certainly no need for a TV series.
Rick Moranis plays Wayne Szalinski, an absent-minded scientist who’s brilliant enough to figure out matter reduction but doesn’t know how to properly conjugate the verb “shrink.” He builds his shrink ray not in some secure lab with appropriate precautions but in his own attic. He doesn’t even lock the door. (This was back when small children could ride shotgun without so much as a booster seat, so that actually tracks.) The shrink ray malfunctions, and the kids have to walk across the lawn. Really, it’s good stuff.
Ill-advised sequels shouldn’t take anything away from the original. The 1989 movie offers fun for the whole family, and it works for a very simple reason: It’s about more than its gimmick.
Shrink rays are straight out of Saturday morning cartoons. Seemingly every cartoon of this era had an episode in which characters shrank and had to navigate new perils. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles had at least two such episodes. It was a quick and easy way to shake up the visuals and make everything dangerous. And that’s usually as far as it went.
At the other end of the spectrum, The Incredible Shrinking Man aimed high and used the concept to explore existential themes in 1957. This science-fiction classic could easily be mistaken for a feature-length episode of The Twilight Zone.
Honey, I Shrunk the Kids aimed somewhere in the middle, tackling more appropriate Disney themes—family and friendship.
It’s about two families who appear to have nothing in common other than the proximity of their homes. But this wacky adventure thrusts them together, and each family realizes that the other isn’t so bad after all.
The heart of the movie is the interplay between the four kids and the four parents as we watch the bonds form. Plus, there’s the metaphor of the kids feeling invisible. The shrink ray is simply the means through which everyone grows closer together.
By the end, the two families are sharing a happy Thanksgiving dinner—quite a change from the early scenes. Bringing these neighbors to that point is what it’s all about. That’s the conclusion. Should have been one and done.
But it made money, so we got Honey, I Blew Up the Kid. (Szalinski really needs to work on his phrasing.)
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The second one wasn't terrible, I thought; the scene with the giant mom at the end is just hilarious. The third one, though, I agree. The only part I liked is where the dentist guy pretends to be the voice of God using the stereo. Funny stuff.
...or science fantasy. That's a thing.