In 1980, while still a 20-year-old newcomer, actor, writer, director, producer, and unrecognized bad-movie wunderkind Steven Paul became the youngest person in American film history ever to write, direct, produce, and star in a major feature film when he made Falling In Love Again, a universally disliked romantic comedy starring Elliott Gould and Michelle Pfeiffer. It's been downhill ever since. In 1983, Paul, while still barely old enough to order a beer, directed the deformed-twins-from-outer-space comedy Slapstick, a film generally regarded as the worst film Jerry Lewis ever made that didn't involve both clowns and concentration camps. So it's perhaps tempting to view producer and co-screenwriter Paul's Baby Geniuses as a deeply personal work, especially once the film's giant, deformed-looking robot baby starts to malfunction. Is this Paul's way of wreaking revenge on a world that eats its young? Or is Baby Geniuses merely a horrible, horrible film that wears out its welcome before its opening credits and lumbers along like a slow-motion trainwreck for what feels like three and a half months? Kathleen Turner, who is becoming the late-period Joan Crawford of the late '90s, stars as some sort of evil corporate tyrant breeding a super-race of extra-intelligent babies, presumably so she can take over the world. Of course, Baby Geniuses' ramshackle plot serves merely as a launching pad for nearly two hours of jokes revolving around the idea of babies who talk and behave like bad stand-up comedians. Ever wanted to see a toddler try on different outfits to the electro-melodic strains of Taco's "Puttin' On The Ritz"? Well, then, Baby Geniuses should be right up your alley. Looking for what could possibly be the least-deserved nostalgic-look-back-at-everything-that's-happened-in-our-little-film closing montage sequence? You won't walk away disappointed. The same cannot be said, however, if you're looking for anything even resembling a watchable film.
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