Adventures In Babysitting

Adventures in Babysitting (1987)

Runtime: 102 minutes

Directed by: Chris Columbus

Starring: Elisabeth Shue, Maia Brewton, Keith Coogan, Anthony Rapp, Calvin Levels

From: Touchstone

This wasn't a movie I was planning on watching but a recent messageboard discussion sparked my interest in watching it... again. You see, this was a childhood favorite and yet I hadn't seen it in full in many years. Thankfully, this was not something that is much worse as an adult. Read my opinions on this from my copied and pasted Letterboxd review below:

I will admit that my take on this movie may be clouded in nostalgia, as this is something I saw more than a few times when I was a youngster; while I haven't seen it in full in who knows how many years, a messageboard discussion revolving around how Michael Kamen's score here is like a dry run for the score that he did in Die Hard and despite seeing both movies often I never put the pieces together and yet I now realize the people in that messageboard thread were on to something. Anyhow, I figured it was a good time anyway to see this again.

The plot is that a babysitter named Chris unexpectedly has to look after Sarah, a young girl who happens to be a huge fan of Thor. Also around is Sarah's 15 year old brother Brad, who has a crush on Chris-understandable, as she's played by Elisabeth Shue-and Brad's sarcastic loudmouth friend Daryl. Via contrivances, these suburbanites all have to go into the city of Chicago to pick someone up and the end result is them on the run from a gang that runs a national car theft operation... and a Playboy Magazine one of them stole that contains “important notes”. Often, this magazine is hanging from the back of Sarah's backpack. Only in the 1980's, and the movie has other examples of things that are hilarious now.

Such as: an 80's Camaro with the license plate “So Cool”; even back then someone driving such a thing had to be such a tool, much less someone driving an 80's Camaro in 2015 with such a plate. Daryl-who remember is only 15-tries to get a date with a prostitute who ends up only being 17, and he makes out with a college woman. But to me the most famous-or infamous-bit is when a character tells Sarah, “Thor's a homo!” While that character gets embarrassed for saying that later, it still is quite the reminder of which decade this is from, and something you'd never hear today in a big release, especially one from Disney.

While this movie is quite ridiculous and silly, as an adult I can still say that I enjoy it. I got plenty of laughs from it, even if they weren't always intentional. It was nice to see a cast full of faces that would become more familiar later on, from Shue and Bradley Whitford to Vincent D'Onofrio, Penelope Ann Miller and future Broadway star Anthony Rapp. Plus, there is a pretty cool soundtrack full of R&B and blues songs, and both Southside Johnny (of the Asbury Jukes fame) and blues legend Albert Collins have small roles. I am not sure what the latter thought of the part where he's a bluesman in an inner city club and he plays for a white woman and white kids singing a goofy song about the adventure they were on (an ultimate “white people” moment), but I imagine he enjoyed the paycheck and notoriety. While you may not like it if you didn't see it as a child like I did, I am glad that as an adult I can still be tickled pink by the film.