Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		3.5
Audio		3.0
Extras		0.5
Overall		3.0

Life with Mikey Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Dr. Stephen Larson November 14, 2022

Life with Mikey (1993) is a speculative imagining of what might have happened to Michael J. Fox's career after Family Ties (1982–89). Marc Lawrence, the film's scribe, was one of the writers on the Eighties sitcom. In an interview he gave Daniel Neman of the Richmond (VA) Times-Dispatch when Life with Mikey came out, Lawrence raised a valid point about how the TV genre can typecast young actors: "The sitcom world is just a factory that turns people into huge stars and then casts them aside, never to be heard of again. And then, because of reruns, they’re locked into that world forever at age 15 or 22 or whatever.” Young Michael Chapman (Kevin Zegers) appeared in the popular TV sitcom Life with Mikey till he was 15. Now 31, Michael Chapman (Michael J. Fox) has spent many of the years since running the low-rent children's talent agency, Chapman & Chapman Co., with his older brother Ed (Nathan Lane). The agency has been floundering for a while, causing Ed to consider leaving it to work in the plumbing fixtures business. It doesn't help that 12-year-old Barry (David Krumholtz), the agency's best talent, feels like leaving the agency so he can "work with Michelle Pfeiffer." Barry earned The Cereal King moniker because he's starred in many cereal commercials. Fortunately for Michael, he catches 10-year-old Angie Vega (Christina Vidal), a pickpocket on the street. Michael can tell almost immediately that she has the talent and moxie to be his next big star. Angie moves in with Michael, a drinker and slob, and teaches him to be a more responsible adult. Angie wins an audition to appear in a "Sunburst Cookies" commercial in spite of sparring with Sunburst CEO, Mr. Corcoran (David Huddleston).

Life with Mikey was the acting debut for Christina Vidal, who's a real natural for the part of Angie. She gives her character a sassy quality to go with street smarts and intuitiveness. One newspaper reviewer criticized Lawrence for introducing a subplot involving Angie's father (an unbilled Ruben Blades), who's been recuperating at a sanitarium. I disagree because it gives the film some pathos to go with its family comedy feel and also introduces a redemption story. Angie needs that paternal figure because she lost her mom and only sometimes lives with her sister and boyfriend, whom she's essentially estranged from. New York stage director James Lapine (Impromptu; Into the Woods) deftly balances the dramatic, comedic, and musical bits.

While Life with Mikey split critics in half, I was pleasantly surprised to see several respond to it so favorably. Patricia Bibby of The Associated Press was impressed with the story's execution and Fox's performance: "Life with Mikey is spun with delightful wisecracks, a childlike charm and the exhilaration of surmounting the odds....What makes this film so credible is that Fox brings to his role a more mature dimen­sion, a quality that he’s lacked in earlier works. There’s something to his character — a certain frustration and resignation — that recalls Jack Lemmon in The Apartment." The Philadelphia Inquirer's Carrie Rickie described it as "a delightful and unusually perceptive comedy about the funny, peculiar world of showbiz 'kidults,' not to mention a film that grownups from 8 to 80 will doubtless enjoy...There are so many entertaining perform­ances in the film that it almost doesn't matter that the script seems to be proceeding in two different directions — sitcom satire and family melodrama — at once....[it's] better than good, that it turns out to be a preteen Broadway Danny Rose, is so much for the better." Rickie's fellow Pennsylvania film critic Marylynn Uricchio wrote in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's that "it’s the ideal heart-warmer for kids, who will love seeing one of their own with so much power." In a similar vein to Rickie, Paul Willistein of The Morning Call (Allentown, PA) compared the picture to Broadway Danny Rose, which is "possibly for, the pre-teen set. The likeable comedy plays on a lot of stereotypes, but it plays it most­ly for laughs with a script that has a lot of generosity going for it."

Others credited Lapine’s direc­tion. Jeffrey Borak of The Berkshire Eagle (Pittsfield, MA) wrote that Lapine gives Life with Mikey "an edge that is both disarming and engaging and they flesh out the center with pungent background detail and characters." The Salt Lake Tribune's Sean P. Means commended Lapine for knowing "how to use just enough humor to dry the tears and keep the sap from running." The Sacramento Bee's Joe Baltake, who gave the film three-and-a-half out of four stars, observed: "Lapine gets around the quea­siness of this new staple plotline not by remaking Curly Sue, but by remaking - and recasting - The Producers....Lapine, meanwhile, has made an entry into mainstream film­making that is nothing less than sensational." Marc Horton of the Edmonton Journal called the movie "a better-acted, better-written and better-directed Curly Sue. Life with Mikey is a gentle summer treat."

Life with Mikey Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Kino Lorber's release of Life with Mikey comes on an MPEG-4 AVC-encoded BD-25. A decade ago, my colleague Martin Liebman reviewed the film's Mill Creek Entertainment edition, which comes bundled with Father Hood. While Mill Creek opened up the framing to 1.78:1, Kino presents the film in its native 1.85:1. Marty wrote that "the image sports significant wear and tear over the opening title sequence..." but the main titles look clean here. Kino may have sourced the same master from MC but the video shows improvements here in color saturation. Detail is good but not exceptional. The image is still soft in places. Kino has encoded the feature at a mean video bitrate of 25442 kbps.

Kino has provided eight chapters for the 91-minute film.

Life with Mikey Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Kino has supplied a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Stereo mix (1557 kbps, 16-bit). The track sounds similar to the one Marty covered. Dialogue is intelligible to my hears. The stereo mix does a solid job of delivering the fluctuating sounds from the childrens' performances in the movie's audition montage. One kid performs Porter's Anything Goes off-key. Composer Alan Menken was on quite a roll when he scored Life with Mikey (1993). He composed Disney's hugely successful triumvirate The Little Mermaid (1989), Beauty and the Beast (1991), and Aladdin (1992). His music for Newsies (1992) wasn't as well received as the others but has since grown in stature, launching a Broadway musical in 2017. For Life with Mikey, Menken wrote a peppy title song. The pop-infused "Cold Enough to Snow" is a more serious ballad with guitar and saxophone accenting its rhythms. Hollywood Records released a 31-track album that contains Christmas songs and Menken's underscore, which sounds warm on Kino's DTS-HD MA 2.0 mix.

Optional English SDH are available for the feature.

Life with Mikey Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Original Theatrical Trailer (1:52, 480i) - Touchstone's trailer for Life with Mikey presented in 1.33:1. The image looks alright but one can easily discern it originates from an interlaced source.

• Bonus Trailers - vintage previews for Hollywood Pictures' Father Hood and Touchstone Pictures' Billy Bathgate.

Life with Mikey Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Touchstone Pictures would have been wise to release Life with Mikey during the Christmas season rather than the early summer of 1993. In spite of this questionable timing, it didn't bomb at the box office, grossing a modest $12.44 million. Kino Lorber gives the film superior compression and a better transfer than Mill Creek's edition. The movie earns a WARM RECOMMENDATION from me.