Customer Reviews

Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves/Honey, I Blew Up the Kid

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I really enjoyed these two "Honey" sequels, even more now than back then. "Honey, I Blew Up the Kid" takes the concept from the original film & turns it around. Flash forward: The Zsalinski family is now nestled in a nice home in Nevada surburbia, thanks to Wayne (Rick Moranis, just as charmingly inept as usual) working at a high-profile lab. With the daughter being sent away to college, the film focuses on now-teenager Nick & the family's brand new addition, blond moppet toddler Adam. Again trying to solve the lab's problems of a growth laser, Wayne brings the kids along...and naturally, little Adam gets accidentally zapped. What follows are some pretty hilarious situations in which the family copes with Adam's growth spurts (who could control a 7-foot baby?) as he systematically wreaks havoc on their home, then on the neighborhood when the secret's out. When Adam creates pandemonium in Vegas, it becomes sort of a satirical take on the old "Attack of the Fifty-Foot Woman" movie as the film brims with some great sight gags.
"Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves" again flips over the other original concept of the kids getting shrunk; only this time, it's the adults who get zapped. Now, Wayne is president of his own lab company, and is living comfortably---only he feels ill-suited to his position. Eve Gordon has replaced Marcia Strassman as his wife, who is chomping at the bit to go on vacation, creating tension in the household. With the passage of time, the two oldest kids have moved on, and the focus is on early-teens Adam (Bug Hall from "The Little Rascals" movie). Instead of a "backyard adventure", there's a "house adventure" as Wayne, his wife, his brother (reliably comical Stuart Pankin) & his sister-in-law struggle to get from upstairs to downstairs with the aid of toy race car tracks, bubble machines, stair railings & so on. Meanwhile, the kids, under the impression that the grown-ups have left for the weekend, begin turning the house upside-down with messy, spurting "chili volcanoes" & noisy teen parties. What they don't know is that the parents are watching every move they make, while simulataneously having some dicey encounters with a cockroach, boys crashing the party, and a medical emergency with Wayne's nephew. Even the women befriend a somewhat cute daddy long legged spider (there's something absurdly funny about two tiny women engaged in small talk while being hoisted on a web line by a spider, as if it's all completely natural!). Eventually, through Wayne's genius, they re-wire a stereo speaker to amplify their voices & are restored to regular size. For a straight-to-video movie, it's done surprisingly well (although I missed the usual animated opening credits). Look for a young Allison Mack (who now co-stars on the hit TV series "Smallville") as the niece.
Like the original movie, Disney didn't bother with DVD extras, which would've been nice to discover how they did these effects, and the cast & crew's comments on making the films. Still, they're pretty good follow-ups to the original.

I was so enchanted with Honey, I Shrunk the Kids that I did not hesitate to watch Honey, We Blew Up Ourselves. I admit to skipping over the second installment as the trailers to Honey, I Blew Up the Kid did not pique my interest. I was a bit confused by the fact Wayne's three children were not in this movie, but perhaps I would have understood more if I had seen The Kid. I was also dsappointed in the change in actresses playing his wife but when I heard her lowering the boom on her husband and he Tiki Man, and especially after hearing her scream at him "I noticed!!!" I changed my mind. The opening credits were not as amusing as the animated ones in the first movie, but the action was very entertaining. I thought watching the adults climbing into a Hot Wheels car was cute, and seeing the mothers jumping into a soap bubble fascinating. Of course, watching the four kids having a ball thinking their parents were not around was hilarious. Maybe some scenes strained one's credibility (Marcia and Patty being transported to the top of the kitchen counter by a daddy-long-legs???) it was still fun for me to watch. In this world of wars, a new President, unemployment and a recession, you need something to make you laugh.

These two movies are old and have been watched and enjoyed no doubt by almost everyone. Great movies in one DVD and if your looking for a great family time together around the TV these are very clean entertainment.

My son loves all three of these Disney dvds. They are clean videos and it's aided with his imagination. This is actually the second set I've purchased because he played the other set so much, he wore it out!!

bought these for my 11 yr old son for Christmas he has been wanting them and hasn't stopped watching them.

The kids realy enjoyed the movie- I think they have watched it 6 times already!

This review applies ONLY to the aspect ratio of the DVD, not the movie itself.

I don't own this but knowing the previous DVD of Honey, I Blew Up the Kid was "fullscreen" and the Amazon description lists "1.33:1" as the aspect ratio, I will assume that this is a fullscreen disc.

Honey, I Blew Up the Kid was shot at a ratio of 1.85 to 1, and was released that way on Laserdisc, as well as UK and French DVDs.

I can't find ratio information on Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves, but since it was a direct-to-video title, I presume that it's original aspect ratio was 1.33.1, like standard televisions.

When studios release a movie that was widescreen as a fullscreen DVD, you are not seeing it the way the director intended. Either they cut off the sides and artificially "pan" back and forth to get the action, or they open the "mattes" so that a squarish image is shown, but you may see boom mics, cables, and other things that weren't intended to be shown. Also on "open matte" titles, the special effects were created for the widescreen theatrical image, and may not fill the whole frame of the movie.

99.9% of all new TVs sold today are Widescreen, and I can't imagine watching a chopped up Fullscreen DVD on one of those at all.