Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves (1997)

Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves (1997)

4/10

Starring

Rick Moranis

Eve Gordon

Bug Hall

Robin Bartlett

Directed by Dean Cundey

Disney decided to round up the whole shrinking and making bigger movies with a final movie making it a trilogy of the adventures of Wayne Szalinski (Rick Moranis) lab malfunctions. After Honey, I Shrunk the Kids in 1989 and Honey, I Blew Up the Kid in 1992, Disney decided to cut back on the huge expenses. They deployed so much money in the making of the second hoping it will be a huge hit like the first movie, but it was a miss. This last movie in the franchise cost way less than half what it cost to make the first movie.

For me this movie too is below par in comparison to the first movie, but it is was not as good as the second. Disney went back to a smaller idea here and allowing the now shrunk adults to deal with just making it through the house.

Many things have changed in this final movie, with the new focus children being Adam and his cousins. Amy and Nick have moved out and the new focus is on Wayne’s extended family. Rick Moranis is the only recurring cast in this movie.

The plot starts with an intro to the new people involved, we see the new Adam, his cousins, aunt and uncle. Wayne’s wife and sister-in-law were going to go on vacation and the men were to care for the kids when they are gone.

Wayne was also told to get rid of a statue he bought, which Wayne likes. When the women were out heading for the vacation, Wayne tricks the kids to go buy toothpicks in the mall so he can take his statue and shrink it. He felt that way he can keep it and his wife will no longer see it.

Things did not go as planned as you could guess, certain things led to the women going back home and they got shrunk along with the men. Now they have to find their way around the house to get their kids to see them and help undo the shrink.

In the end, the franchise spawn a TV series on the Disney Channel which ran for three seasons and was more focused on the first film, with no Adam.

The scaling it down idea of this movie was Disney’s way of testing direct-to-video live action films. This was their first direct-to-video live action film and it did well for them even though the movie was a critical bomb and didn’t do much good producing it from my view.