Baby's Day Out

Baby's Day Out

Film poster depicting a infant in a taxi, happily watching these buildings. The title "Baby's Day Out", a text "When the big city called, he had to answer. Born to go wild.", the names of the cast, director, producer, and music composer, and a release date appears at the bottom of a film poster.

Theatrical release poster
Directed by Patrick Read Johnson
Produced by John Hughes
Richard Vane
Written by John Hughes
Starring
Music by Bruce Broughton
Cinematography Thomas E. Ackerman
Edited by David Rawlins
Production
company
Distributed by 20th Century Fox
Release dates
  • July 1, 1994 (1994-07-01)
Running time
 99 minutes[1]
Country United States
Language English
Budget $48 million[1]
Box office

$16,671,505 (domestic)[1]

$27,371,505 (worldwide)[2]

Baby's Day Out is a 1994 American family comedy adventure film, written by John Hughes, produced by Richard Vane and John Hughes, and directed by Patrick Read Johnson. The film stars twins Adam and Jacob Worton as Baby Bink with co-stars Joe Mantegna, Joe Pantoliano and Brian Haley as the film's three incompetent antagonists. The plot centers on a wealthy baby's kidnapping by three incompetent villains, his escape and adventure through a big city while being pursued by the three kidnappers.

Baby's Day Out was released on July 1, 1994 in the United States to both critical and commercial failure there. However, it enjoyed major popularity in South Asian markets.

Plot

Bennington Austin "Bink" Cotwell IV (Adam and Jacob Worton), a mischievous baby who lives in a huge mansion with his family, is just about to appear in the social pages of the newspaper. Three criminals, Eddie, Norby, and Veeko, pose as the photographers and kidnap him, demanding a ransom. After the kidnapping, however, they have difficulty controlling him. While trying to get Bink to fall asleep, Norby does so reading Bink's book titled "Baby's Day Out", leaving him unattended. Looking through it, Bink notices a bird on the page and then one by the open window. He follows it out and successfully gets away from his kidnappers, with Eddie falling off the building and into a garbage bin while chasing after him through the rooftop.

The FBI arrives at the mansion, headed by Dale Grissom (Fred Thompson), where they try to piece together clues along with Bink's parents and his loving nanny, Gilbertine (Cynthia Nixon).

Bink follows the story of his book by exploring the city and visiting the same locations in the same order. He crawls onto a bus, goes inside a department store and is briefly mistaken for having escaped from the care centre, stows away in a taxi and goes to the zoo, where he ends up inside a cage with a protective gorilla, and eventually a construction site. All the while, the kidnappers pursue him all over, but are unable to catch him. When they end up stuck inside the construction site after its closure for the day, they decide to give up and go home. Bink next visits the Old Soldiers' Home, where the veterans recognize him as the missing baby.

Bink's parents are notified by the FBI of various sightings of him in the city and Gilbertine deduces that he has been following the happenings of his favorite book and will most likely head for the Old Soldiers' Home next. Sure enough, they find him there, but on the way home, he begins to call out "Boo-Boo" toward the kidnappers' apartment. As the kidnappers contemplate such a humiliating defeat, they are horrified when the FBI moves in and arrests them after Grissom demands to throw down the book first.

Back home, Bink is put to bed by his family. As his parents discuss having his picture taken by a normal photographer in the morning, he wakes up and gets ready to read another book, this one entitled Baby's Trip to China.

Cast

Reception

Critical response

Baby's Day Out was panned by critics, and holds a 21% "rotten" approval rating at the review website Rotten Tomatoes, with 3 positive reviews from 14.[3]

On the Siskel & Ebert show, critic Roger Ebert wrote that "'Baby's Day Out' contains gags that might have worked in a Baby Herman cartoon, but in live action, with real people, taxis, buses, streets, and a real baby, they're just not funny. The Worton twins are adorable as Baby Bink, however; the audience produced an audible coo the first time they saw him on the screen." He gave the film 1 1/2 stars.[4]

His partner, Gene Siskel, however, liked the film because he thought that young children would love it for the humor. Hal Hinson, writing for the Washington Post, wrote: "The pace is quick and efficient but never frantic...almost everything in the picture is just right, including the two-bit crooks who abduct the superhero toddler and end up bruised and begging hilariously for mercy. Best of all, though, is the Binkman himself, whose tiny face is so expressive that he brings new meaning to the phrase 'conquering with a smile.'"[5]

Box office

The film opened with takings of $4,044,662 at the start of July 1994.[6][7][8] The film finally grossed $16,827,402 at the domestic box office, a disappointing return considering the $48 million production budget for the film. It ranked at #83 for the best performing films of 1994.[1]

It was also the 26th best performing PG-rated family film of the year in 1994.[1]

Popularity in South Asia and remakes

Baby's Day Out was tremendously popular in South Asia, including India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. In India the movie was played at the largest theater in Calcutta for over a year. Recalling a trip to Calcutta, Roger Ebert says, "I asked if "Star Wars" had been their most successful American film. No, I was told, it was "Baby's Day Out"..."[9] It was remade twice, first in Telugu in 1995 under the title Sisindri and then in Malayalam in 1999 under the title James Bond. It was dubbed in Tamil with the title Chutti Kuzhanthai meaning Naughty baby. It was also dubbed in Bengali and played at theaters in Bangladesh. It was also dubbed in Punjabi as a comedy in Pakistan.

Video game

A video game version of the film was planned, completed, and slated to be released on Super Nintendo Entertainment System, Sega Genesis and Game Boy in October 1994,[10][11] but was cancelled at the last minute. Two prototypes of the Genesis port can be found for download on several ROM sites. One is a near completed version while the other is a very early beta. Instead of playing as Bink, the player controls what appears to be Bink's guardian angel to guide Bink to safety in the vein of Pac-Man 2: The New Adventures.

Home media

20th Century Fox Home Entertainment released the film on VHS on April 4, 1995. The film was released on DVD on January 29, 2001. It includes Patrick Read Johnson's commentary, a featurette, and a trailer for the film. The film was re-released on DVD on October 11, 2011, the same day as the first Blu-ray release for Garfield: The Movie.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 "Baby's Day Out (1994)". Box Office Mojo. Amazon.com. Retrieved June 19, 2009.
  2. ↑ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0109190/business?ref_=tt_dt_bus
  3. ↑ Baby's Day Out at Rotten Tomatoes
  4. ↑ Ebert, Roger (July 1, 1994). "Baby's Day Out review". rogerebert.com. Chicago Sun Times. Retrieved June 19, 2009.
  5. ↑ Hinson, Hal (July 1, 1994). "'Baby's Day Out'". Washington Post. Retrieved June 19, 2009.
  6. ↑ "Weekend Box Office Results for July 1–4, 1994". Box Office Mojo. Amazon.com. Retrieved June 19, 2009.
  7. ↑ "Fourth of July Weekend Box Office". The Los Angeles Times. July 7, 1994. Retrieved January 12, 2011.
  8. ↑ "Baby's Day Out – Box Office Data". thenumbers.com. The Numbers. Archived from the original on May 23, 2009. Retrieved June 19, 2009.
  9. ↑ Ebert, Roger (August 6, 2009). "John Hughes: In Memory". rogerebert.com. Retrieved February 23, 2015.
  10. ↑ videoreviewchris (August 6, 2013). "Baby's Day Out-Video Game Trailer". YouTube. Retrieved November 26, 2014.
  11. ↑ "ProReview: Baby's Day Out". GamePro (64). IDG. November 1994. p. 104.

External links

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