HONEY, I SHRUNK THE KIDS

US, 1989, 93 minutes, Colour.
Rick Moranis, Marcia Strassman, Matt Frewer.
Directed by Joe Johnston.

Honey, I Shrunk the Kids is a pleasant Disney family comedy in the tradition of the special effects films like Darby O'Gill and the Little People and The Absentmined Professor. It shows an ordinary family in suburbia with Rick Moranis as the eccentric inventor father. He is working on a machine that shrinks things - and by mistake, of course, the children are shrunk. He misses them and puts them out with the garbage - they escape from the bag and have to make their way through the garden. This gives rise to all kinds of fine special effects for the jungle that the garden becomes for them - grass, blades, flowers, the lawn being watered and the pools of mud, a biscuit, ants and insects, a bee and pollen, etc.

The film is light and humorous, moves at a pleasantly brisk pace - and all things are nicely resolved (of course).

1.Pleasing Disney family film? Special effects? Comedy?

2.Suburban homes, the inventing of complicated machines? The special effects for the shrinking, for the room, the garden? The insects as monsters? Musical score?

3.The title and its tone - pleasantly comic and nice film?

4.Dad and his experiments, absentminded, the convention? Mum and her exasperation and leaving? The children and their behaviour? The Thompsons next door, their hostility? The tension with their own children, the fishing expedition, Russ and his not wanting to go, Ronnie and his wanting to go, the friend turning up and the father being unable to leave home?

5.The kids, their relationship amongst themselves, the ball, the shrinking process? Their behaviour in the room, being gathered up with the rubbish, thrown out, cutting their way out of the garbage bag, their ability to cope in the garden?

6.Amy, her age, the leader, hopes - wanting to go to the mall that evening? Russ, romantic, not wanting to swim? Shy? Nick and his precocious style? Ronnie and his toughness? The children together, adventures, helping each other, clashes, truces, jokes (about the French class)?

7.The adventures in the garden: the distance, the valleys, the grass, the water and almost drowning, Russ rescuing Amy, the bee and Nicholas going for a ride, the pollen, the huge and the biscuit, sleeping in the Lego block, the fight of the insects, the danger of the lawnmower?

8.The father and his search, on the clothesline, the clients and their wondering, the Thompsons' reaction? The wife coming home, the calling of the police, the reaction of the police? Everybody joining the search?

9.Breakfast, finding the children, the experiment with Russ Thompson, his courage in being shrunk and back to normal size? The children back to normal? The happy resolution of their differences, the friendship of the neighbours?

10.Enjoyable comedy, audiences identifying with the adventures - a pleasant What if...? fantasy?