Honey, I Still Find This Movie Entertaining
In the late 90’s, Disney became all about their direct to video sequels, which are hit or miss. Most people consider Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves, the second sequel to Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, to be one of those misses, but I still enjoy it.
By this point, Rick Moranis is the only actor from the franchise to come back. He’s still playing Wayne Szalinski, who is now the president of his own company. Amy and Nick are out of the house, and only get a couple of mentions. However, it’s been long enough between movies that Adam (Bug Hall) is a preteen now.
As the movie opens, Diane (now played by Eve Gordon) is looking forward to a mini-vacation with her sister-in-law Patti (Robin Bartlett). They will be leaving Adam and his cousins Jenny and Mitch (Allison Mack and Jake Richardson) with Wayne and his brother Gordon (Stuart Pankin).
However, the weekend doesn’t go as planned when Wayne decides to shrink a giant tiki that Diane wants him to get rid of. Oh, the Tiki gets shrunk, but so do all four adults. While the kids think they have free range of the house, the adults try to figure out a way to get their attention. Will they succeed?
Let’s be honest here. The storyline isn’t terribly original. Then again, there are only so many things you can do with the franchise’s premise. Additionally, it seems like the character arcs are fairly predictable. Then again, they were in the original, too.
As I am often quick to point out, I am fine with predictable if I am having fun, and I definitely have fun with this movie. Honestly, I was surprised the original sequel didn’t find people shrunk in the house as, it seems like a natural storyline. That’s what they do here, and boy do they have fun with it. Honestly, I’m jealous of a few things the adults get to do over the course of the movie. And, as predictable as the character arcs are, I still really enjoyed them.
The movie suffers from not having more returning actors. Eve Gordon tries, but she never feels like Diane to me. Honestly, the entire cast does fine, but they needed more continuity with characters and actors. Having said that, as a Smallville fan, I enjoyed getting to see a pre-Chloe Allison Mack here.
The special effects are good. A couple of times, it is obvious when they are using a green screen, but I buy most of what we are watching.
Like it’s brethren on DVD, this movie comes in full frame only for picture. (Remember when TV screens were square?) I suspect that may be native for this movie since it was released to home video, while the others in the franchise have yet to see a wide screen home video release.
If you love the franchise, you need to give Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves a chance. If you like the first but not the original sequel, then there’s no reason to track this movie down.
I loved the original movie, but this looks good too.
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