Honey, I Blew Up the Kid



Honey, I Blew Up the Kid is a 1992 Walt Disney Pictures movie starring Rick Moranis as Wayne Szalinski, reprising the role he had previously in the smash hit movie Honey, I Shrunk the Kids in 1989. The director was Randal Kleiser.

Also returning from the first film are Marcia Strassman as Wayne's wife, Diane, and their previously shrunken son Nick, who is again performed by Robert Oliveri. Newcomer Keri Russell is Mandy the babysitter who was supposed to be watching Adam but now is the one being watched by the giant who holds her and his older brother captive in his overalls' pocket. The antagonist to Wayne and his family is John Shea, as Dr. Charles Hendrickson, who wants the giant stopped at all costs and would like to take over Wayne's invention that is now owned by the major corporation they work for.

This film would be followed by one last sequel in 1997, this time a direct-to-video movie Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves. A TV show would also follow this movie in 1997, called Honey, I Shrunk the Kids: The TV Show, but chronologically it would take place before this film occurred as Adam was nowhere to be found.

Plot
Wayne Szalinzki is the father of a family of three: Amy, who is a college student; Nick, a high schooler; and Adam, a toddler. At the beginning of the movie, Amy and her mother leave to go to college together, so Wayne, Nick and Adam are left home. The introduction of the story centers on Nick and his attempts to make contact with his crush, Mandy; and Wayne's attempt at work to create an enlarging machine at Sterling Labs, outside Las Vegas, while being hampered by his snobby boss, Dr. Charles Hendrickson. Although Wayne is technically the director of the project, Dr. Hendrickson is trying to take over.

One Saturday, Wayne returns to the lab with Nick and Adam to try an idea he has to make the machine work. Because Hendrickson denies him access, he sneaks in without permission. Nick asks him what they'll use as a test subject, and Wayne chooses Adam's stuffed rabbit, Big Bunny. When no one is looking, Adam sneaks out of his seat to get Big Bunny. However, when the process starts (with a broken glass bottle), Wayne and Nick accidentally cause a power surge that destroys the system, and both the bunny and Adam end up being zapped with the ray. He returns to his seat before Wayne looks up, so he doesn't realize what he has done.

After Wayne returns home, he puts Adam in a high chair to feed him lunch and then leaves the room to help Nick to find a movie he wants to see. Only then does Adam begin to grow via the blue electric waves. Fed with the power of the microwave oven, he suddenly grows to the height of a man-and more. Wayne and Nick see this, and then try to sneak back into the lab to return him to his normal size; however Hendrickson stops them for causing a power surge, so they have to return home.

Upon returning home, Wayne realizes that his wife, Diane, is back from taking Amy to college. Diane is informed of the problem, and is angry at first. After calming her down, Wayne decides to find his original shrink machine from Honey, I Shrunk the Kids to shrink Adam back to normal. Wayne and Diane leave and Nick is left alone with the seven-foot toddler. While Nick and Adam are at home together, their babysitter, Mandy (who happens to be the girl Nick has a crush on) arrives. Upon seeing Adam, she faints and Nick is forced to take her inside the house and tie her up in order to keep her from screaming in fear.

While Nick is caring for Mandy and telling her the truth, Adam is left alone watching TV. Fed by the electric power, he suddenly grows again via the blue electric waves while doing the locomotion and breaks through the wall of the house, now fifteen feet tall. Nick releases Mandy, asking for her help to find Adam, promising that she will be paid overtime. She agrees, and they search around the neighborhood, while Adam storms it. Hendrickson finds out about Adam, and calls his boss, a man named Clifford Sterling. Adam is put in a large truck to try to contain him.

Wayne and Diane arrive home with the shrink machine at the same time Sterling arrives. Upon arriving, Sterling realizes what a good man that Wayne is and fires Hendrickson; then he begins to talk with Wayne, thinking of a strategy to get Adam back to normal size.

Meanwhile, in the truck, Adam is fed by yet another electrical surge when blue electric waves channel through the electric lines hitting the truck and he busts out from the truck, now fifty feet tall, where upon he presently picks up Nick and Mandy and puts them in his pocket, thinking they are new toys. Then he starts roaming the highways. Wayne and Diane catch up with Adam, but are unable to shrink him using the machine because he will need to be still for twelve seconds. Adam walks past them, heading for Las Vegas.

Adam arrives in downtown Las Vegas, and immediately starts storming the streets, particularly Fremont Street in downtown Las Vegas, Nevada, in a Godzilla-type fashion. Many attempts are made to control him, and none of them work. At one part Adam even tries to eat Nick and Mandy, but they are saved from being eaten alive by the giant toddler by their car. Finally, Diane decides that she needs to be enlarged to above Adam's size so that she can make him hold still for the machine. Adam then begins playing with a guitar from a Hard Rock Cafe.

Meanwhile, Hendrickson tries to shoot Adam with a tranquilizer cartridge from a helicopter he gained access to with the military's assistance. After the pilot, concerned for the safety of Adam and the people around him causes Hendrickson to miss the first shot, he manages to hit the guitar on the second shot, giving Adam a slight electric shock, and causing him to cry. Hendrickson's helicopter is then caught in the hand of a giant Diane. Diane forces the helicopter to back off, and she then meets up with Adam and gets him to stop crying. The giant mother comforts Adam, telling him that everything will be ok. This makes the whole crowd feel in awe and relief. She gives him a hug, not knowing that her giant body almost crushes normal-sized Nick and Mandy who are in Adam's pocket. After that, the giant mom, Diane gets her son Adam to calm down and they are both shrunk back to normal size. Diane confronts Hendrickson about the fact that he was trying to shoot Adam, and when he explains that they were tranquilizer darts, Diane knocks him out.

Nick, Mandy, and the car who had been in Adam's pocket when he was shrunk, fall out of the pocket and onto a stone ledge where Nick finally gets to talk to Mandy. Diane, Wayne, and Sterling decide to let the two enjoy their moment together rather than enlarge them right away. Suddenly, Wayne realizes that they had forgotten to shrink the stuffed bunny along with Adam, which is still huge. The movie ends with an overjoyed Adam playing with a hundred-foot-tall "Big Bunny".

Cast

 * Rick Moranis as Wayne Szalinski


 * Marcia Strassman as Diane Szalinski, Nick's wife


 * Lloyd Bridges as Clifford Sterling, Nick's boss


 * Robert Oliveri as Nick Szalinski, Nick & Diane's son


 * John Shea as Dr. Charles Hendrickson, Nick's rival


 * The Shalikar Twins: Daniel & Joshua as Adam Szalinski, Wayne & Diane's son


 * Keri Russell as Mandy Park, Nick's girlfriend


 * Ron Canada as Marshall Brooks


 * Amy O'Neill as Amy Szalinski, Nick & Diane's daughter


 * Linda Carlson as Nosy Neighbor


 * Leslie Neale as Constance Winters


 * Gregory Sierra as Terence Wheeler


 * Julia Sweeney - Another Nosy Neighbor


 * Michael Milhoan as Captain Ed Myerson

Trivia

 * This movie wasn't originally intended to be a follow up to Honey, I Shrunk the Kids. Originally titled "Big Baby" it was about a young toddler who grew to giant size by a freak accident involving a growth ray and eventually terrorized Las Vegas in a non-violent, yet Godzilla-esqe way. Disney saw the possibilities of making this into a follow up to Honey, I Shrunk the Kids and re-wrote the script to movie:


 * Disney would later find itself the subject of a lawsuit as a result of the film, brought on by a game show announcer who had also done screenplays and came up with the idea of an oversized toddler after babysitting his granddaughter and watching her topple over building blocks. His screenplay had been reviewed but never made into a movie, and it was titled "Now, That's a Baby!". Disney eventually settled out of court. The script had a few different ideas though. One was the baby was to be a little girl instead, who became gigantic as a result of a genetic experiment instead of a ray machine. Her parents were scientists desperately finding some way to change her back. The antagonist in the script was not a coworker, but instead a hawkish military officer who seeks to eliminate the gigantic little girl by deploying a missile battery against her, arguing with Washington that she will ruin all cities if left unchecked, but also seeking it to be his one chance to be hailed as a hero.