Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.0
Audio		3.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		3.5

Adventures in Babysitting Blu-ray Movie Review

"Don't $#@% with the Babysitter!"

Reviewed by Michael Reuben September 6, 2012

Before his blockbuster collaborations with John Hughes and his inauguration of the Harry Potter franchise, Chris Columbus began his directorial career with Adventures in Babysitting, which is still many viewers' favorite Elisabeth Shue movie. Watched today in light of the subsequent partnership between Columbus and Hughes on the Home Alone films, Babysitting feels like it should have been a Hughes film, even though the idea had been kicking around Hollywood long before either Hughes or Columbus got there. (The actual writing credit went to David Simkins, whose previous experience had been with a TV show he helped produce in high school.) The Chicago suburban setting, the upper middle class kids who get into trouble but come out all right, the cartoonish crooks, the slapstick humor and the thick dollop of sentiment are all pages from Hughes's playbook. One can imagine Hughes watching Adventures in Babysitting and thinking: "That's my kind of director!"

After Babysitting, Elisabeth Shue spent years trying to break away from girlfriend and "girl next door" typecasting, but she didn't make much progress until her Oscar-nominated turn in Leaving Las Vegas (1995). A big part of the reason was simply that she was so good at such parts, and no role showcases her abilities better than the increasingly desperate sitter Chris Parker, who also happened to be the film's lead. It didn't hurt that Shue was surrounded by so many talented faces, some in very small parts, who would go on to much bigger careers. Bradley Whitford played her deceitful boyfriend, long before The West Wing made him familiar as a presidential aide. Penelope Ann Miller was her best friend, years before getting involved with the mob in The Freshman and Carlito's Way or turning to silent films in Chaplin and The Artist. Anthony Rapp was one of her babysitting charges before growing up to be a star of Rent on Broadway (and of the musical film that Columbus later directed).

Vincent D'Onofrio made a spectacular entrance in a single scene as a surly garage owner (and possibly a Norse god), long before he distinguished himself as a protean villain in films like Men in Black and Strange Days and as an eccentric cop on Law and Order: Criminal Intent. Lolita Davidovich (who was then billing herself as "Lolita David") turned up in one scene as a boozy co-ed blonde, but would later restore her full name and become Ron Shelton's muse (and wife) in Blaze, Cobb and Play It to the Bone, among others. And Clark Johnson, a future cop on Homicide: Life on the Streets and an influential director of The Shield, The Wire and S.W.A.T., showed up briefly as one of the leaders of rival gangs; it's hard not to laugh at his attempts to look and sound disreputable.

Chris Parker (Shue) expects to go out on a big date for their anniversary with her boyfriend, Mike (Whitford), but he blows her off with a flimsy excuse about a sick sister. Her mother (Sandra Shuman) ropes Chris into babysitting for eight-year-old Sara Anderson (Maia Brewton), whose teenage brother, Brad (Keith Coogan), has a crush on Chris and decides to stay in for the night. What would otherwise have been merely a trying evening turns into an adventure when Chris's best friend, Brenda (Miller), calls frantically from the bus depot downtown begging Chris to come get her, because she's run away from home but spent all her money on cab fare. Chris has no choice but to pack Sara and Brad into her mom's car and head for the freeway (or rather, since this is supposed to be Chicago, the "expressway"). To her chagrin, Chris also has to take Brad's friend Daryl (Rapp), who sees them leaving and trades tagging along for his silence.

The drive from suburban Oak Park to Chicago's Loop and back should be a quick turnaround, but a nightmare odyssey begins when Chris has a blowout on the highway and discovers that there's no spare in the trunk. A big bear of a tow truck driver named Pruitt (John Ford Noonan) comes to their rescue, except that they suddenly find themselves caught in the crossfire (literally) of his marital troubles. Before they know it, they're in a stolen car being driven by Joe Gipp (Calvin Levels), who says he loves the danger of the job. ("You should try babysitting", Chris retorts.) But Joe's bosses, Graydon and Bleak (Ron Canada and John Davis Chandler), aren't thrilled when he brings Chris and three kids to their operation, and the group narrowly escapes in a daring feat of acrobatics. Fleeing the scene, they have to sing the blues in a jazz club overseen by music legend Albert Collins (playing himself), navigate a drunken frat party, narrowly avoid repeated encounters with Sara's and Brad's parents, and perform vertiginous acrobatics outside a Chicago skyscraper that would make even Ethan Hunt think twice. Meanwhile, Graydon and Bleak keep chasing them.

By the time Chris and her charges manage to ransom her mom's repaired auto from an intimidating garage owner named Dawson (D'Onofrio), whose flowing blond locks cause Sara to take him for her hero, Thor, God of Thunder, we've long since left Planet Reality. Add in a too-good-to-be-true romantic prospect in the person of college man Dan (George Newbern), and a successful stealth race home against Mr. and Mrs. Anderson, and the evening is almost complete—almost. The only thing that remains is to give the now ex-boyfriend Mike the comeuppance he deserves, which Chris does effectively and in public.

If there's one unresolvable sad streak in Babysitting, it's Brad Anderson's unrequited (and unrequitable) love for the much more mature Chris. (A similar and squirmier version of this story played out in the recent Crazy Stupid Love.) In the end, Brad's only recourse is to let time catch up with his ambition, while Chris turns in her babysitting credentials, moves on to college and pairs off with Dan.

Adventures in Babysitting Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

On the hit-and-miss world scorecard of Disney catalog titles, the 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray of Adventures in Babysitting comes up a solid "win". The film's cinematography by the late Ric Waite (48 Hours, Red Dawn) created a low-key, realistic look that helped disguise the fact that much of the supposedly Chicago-based film was photographed in Toronto. The Blu-ray image is capably detailed with appropriately dark black levels in the many night scenes and no signs of crushing, high frequency filtering or artificial sharpening. The film's grain pattern is readily evident in most scenes. Indeed, the grain is sufficiently obvious in some portions of the film that some posters on Blu-ray.com have suggested that noise reduction should have been applied. I can only observe that I saw no "noise" on the Blu-ray of Adventures in Babysitting that needed to be reduced or eliminated. The disc's image simply reproduces, in a pixel medium, the photochemical grain that is the medium by which film records images. Granted, this particular film imagery is somewhat grainier than others, but that's how some films look. If one doesn't like the texture of this particular film, feel free to apply the various sharpness and DNR controls on your Blu-ray player and TV. As far as the Blu-ray is concerned, Disney has done an excellent job of reproducing the source, and I have rated the video accordingly.

Colors are nicely saturated but not overly so, and contrast is maintained at an appropriate level to bring out detail without blowing it out; exceptions are made for the occasional shot where intense contrast is part of the design, e.g., the entrance of Dawson (who may also be Thor). Despite the lack of extras, Disney has used a BD-50; compression artifacts were not an issue.

Adventures in Babysitting Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

As with many films from the Eighties that were released in stereo but have been remixed for 5.1, the DTS-HD MA 5.1 track is largely front-centered and lacks anything of significance in the rear channels, even during an extended scene of gunfire. Even today, comedy directors are often reluctant to direct the viewer's attention away from the screen with elaborate surround effects. Dialogue is clear, and the delightfully facetious score by Michael Kamen has a pleasant tonality. The following year, Kamen would score the first Die Hard, and if you listen closely, you can hear intimations of that score's comic elements in Babysiting. Kamen's pop sensibility was ideal for a score that had to blend with soundtrack selections ranging from "Gimme Shelter" to "Then He Kissed Me".

Adventures in Babysitting Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

The disc contains no extras, not even the film's theatrical trailer. At startup the disc plays trailers for Frankenweenie and Who Framed Roger Rabbit on Blu-ray, plus an anti-smoking PSA. The main menu has an option for "Sneak Peeks" that plays trailers for ABC TV on Blu-ray and Castle: Season 4.

Adventures in Babysitting Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

A running joke throughout Adventures in Babysitting is that Chris Parker is constantly mistaken for the current Playboy centerfold, "Chaylene", whom she apparently resembles, at least as much of her as anyone can see. The joke worked at multiple levels, because it fed so easily into the fantasies of male audience members who developed the same crush on Chris that young Brad Anderson has. Elisabeth Shue always succeeded in such roles because she effortlessly projected the same "girl next door" quality that Playboy sought in their models, while at the same time suggesting something more substantial under the surface. If there had been a studio machine capable of developing further lead parts tailored to Shue's talents, she could easily have become one of the reigning screen comediennes of her generation. (Even a supporting part in Soapdish demonstrated her range, and that was in the company of such formidable competition as Sally Field and Kevin Kline.) Alas, it's taken Hollywood another quarter century until, post-Bridesmaids, the executive suite has finally grasped the favorable economics of making funny pictures anchored by women. Shue and Columbus were ahead of their time. Highly recommended.