Honey, I Blew Up the Kid

Prequel: “Honey, I Shrunk the Kids” (1989) / Sequel: “Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves” (1996)

Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is really big, he won’t depart from it? That could be one of the lessons of this sequel to the 1989 Disney hit “Honey, I Shrunk The Kids”. This time around, wacky inventor Wayne Szalinski (Rick Moranis) finds his two-year-old son growing to over 100 feet tall as the result of another experiment gone awry.

This fast-paced film follows the comic misadventures of the family as they deal with the antics of a curious toddler who soon towers over them. Parents and kids alike will chuckle as they identify with the havoc that can be caused by a typical two-year-old whose hands are into everything. Watching the damage that can be done by a seven-foot and still growing child may give parents renewed appreciation for their “little” ones.

Underlying the humor of a child who sees the world as his plaything (using real cars as toys, etc.), however, Christian moms and dads should see the critical importance of bringing their kids under God’s authority at an early age. The world is already filled with too many “big kids” in adult bodies who never learned how to obey and are now causing moral chaos in every realm that is actually more destructive in light of eternity than the mayhem depicted for laughs in this movie.

Violence in “Honey, I Blew Up The Kid” is mostly limited to material things being damaged or destroyed by the towering tot. Parents will quickly realize that this is the kind of movie where no one (except maybe the villain) will actually get hurt, though younger children may be frightened at the prospect of people getting squashed by the giant juvenile. A pleasant surprise for modern movies, there were no profanities or blasphemies against God’s name detected by this reviewer.

Sex is not shown, though a side plot has the toddler’s teenage brother yearning for the family’s baby-sitter. The two adolescents end up together by the film’s conclusion and their romantic involvement is condoned and seemingly encouraged by the elder Szalinski. It seems Hollywood is almost incapable of producing a “family” film without having some “love interest” to entice youths beyond a pure and Biblical one-man/one-woman marriage relationship.

With crazy, comic situations and excellent special effects, “Honey, I Blew Up The Kid” shows what a big job parenting can be, especially when a child grows up in stature but not in wisdom.