I couldn't resist the temptation, and I found myself liking 'Look Who's Talking Now', even though I knew it wasn't really a... what's the word I'm looking for here... good movie? I think it was because I had gone into it expecting absolutely nothing. It's not the kind of movie that'll change your life, and you'll probably forget you had even seen it the next morning, but it's fun and lightweight, just as films in this genre should be.
The last week, I've gone a movie watching spree, watching at least eleven films in seven days, and this is probably the biggest treasure out of the bunch, if only because it was so much better than I had hoped. Angela's Ashes, The Running Man, Blow, Memento, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, Empire of the Sun, Paper Moon, Jacob's Ladder, Leaving Las Vegas, Along Came a Spider, The Stand, the list goes on and on, and, of all those films, this is the one that stands out... if you can believe that. Of course it had it's share of flaws, probably more than the rest of those movies combined, but hey, it just added to the fun instead of detract from it.
I did see Look Who's Talking. I hated it. I hated it with a passion. That was a year ago. Why I hated it, I don't know. I just know that I didn't like it at all. The only reason I rented this movie, it's SECOND sequel, was to see how the series had deteriorated since the first film. Well, if nothing else, it's really improved. I haven't seen the second in the series, but I doubt it could even begin to match the third.
One can guess that Travolta didn't want to be here. You've gotta feel sorry for the guy. Once one of Hollywood's biggest stars, through the eighties he was reduced to parts in TV movies and bland films like The Experts. He struck box office gold in 1989 with the first Look Who's Talking, and then made a few wrong moves and was right back down at the bottom of Hollywood, even appearing in both of the sequels. Well, if he was bored here, he sure didn't show it. Though his performance seemed to wane a bit towards the end, he was engaging all the way through, and obviously didn't feel as though the material was below him like many actors would've had they been in his position.
Kirstie Alley, however, is entirely a different story. Never a particulary good actress, you have to wonder how she rose so high into Hollywood's elite, before plunging again after the first Look Who's Talking. Her screen presence here is non existent, and she is about as much fun to watch as this review probably is to read. Though she doesn't bring the whole film down with her, she comes pretty close at times, and for me at least, didn't garner a single laugh.
As the voices of the two dogs, Rocks and Daphne, Danny DeVito and Diane Keaton fare a lot better than Alley. Given some of the best lines in the film, they add a certain flare to their characters, making us believe that dogs actually can communicate with each other as illustrated here, even if it is clearly not possible. It takes real talent to make the audience believe that. Even if it is just through voice work, chemistry between the two is clearly evident, and you wish they had been given more scenes together, or even seperately. The writers seemed to forget about the dogs for long periods of time and focusing instead of the family, even though the movie was supposed to revolve around the dogs, at least according to the advertising.
Though she is third billed, Olympia Dukakis has little more than a cameo, given five or six lines at the absolute most. Rounding out the main cast was the two actors who played Travolta and Alley's kids, David Gallagher as Mikey and Tabitha Lupien as Julie. Lupien is funny at times, especially with her obsession with basketball star Charles Barkley, but it's clear that was too young to really know what was going on, and just following the orders of the director. She did have some good lines, and that wide eyed gaze she had is priceless. Gallagher, who was later cast as one of the leads on the television series 7th Heaven, is impressive here, turning in a surprisingly good performance for someone so young. Though his character was shallow and obviously wasn't drawn out much (strange considering he's on screen for most of the movie), he makes good use of the weak material given to him.
Spread out through the movie were five or six dream sequences. There's only one word to describe them, downright hilarious. Wait, that's two words. Oh well, they were really funny though. I'm not going to go through describing them, you'll have to see them for yourselves, but take my word on it, it doesn't get much funnier than that folks.
Well, I've spent long enough praising the movie, now to the flaws I mentioned earlier. For one, I don't know if this was the fault of the boom operator or if it was my particular cassette, but the on location audio was dreadful. The voices were muffled and hard to understand, and it weakened the impact of many of the dialogue based jokes. Any chemistry between Travolta and Alley that may have existed in the first Look Who's Talking has vanished. Though many may not agree with me, I put the majority of the blame on Alley, who probably took this role only because of the paycheck.
The last third of the movie, especially the sappy happy ending, is contrived beyond belief and not the least bit funny. It's as if the producers hired a seperate writer for the ending, the style is that much different from the rest of the movie. The songs are unimaginably bad. Well, it's not so much the songs, but the obtrusive way they were edited in, with the audio levels at least 50% higher than the rest of the movie. I'm not going to drone on and on, like I already have, so I'll end this quick.
Look Who's Talking Now is a surprisingly entertaining little movie, easily better than the lackluster first entry, just don't go in expecting too much (which shouldn't be too hard given the horrible reviews and low IMDb rating), because you're bound to be disappointed.
7.5/10
