
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, July 2, 1994                   TAG: 9407040095
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: B10   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: By KATHRYN BERNHEIMER KNIGHT-RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

'BABY'S DAY OUT' IS TOO CUTE, TOO PAINFUL

Our children's precious lives can be mercilessly obliterated in a heartbeat. This terrible knowledge, every parent's nightmare, must be pushed aside in order to enjoy ``Baby's Day Out.''

The baby-in-jeopardy joke, repeated in endless variations in this overly cute comedy, will surely create more discomfort in some viewers than the humor can counteract. Some will cringe as the 9-month-old crosses a busy street, crawling merrily along as cars whiz past in all directions, and a truck passes directly overhead, straddling the infant on the loose. Others, buoyed by the cartoon quality of the comedy, will chuckle as baby once again emerges unscathed, as we know he will.

John Hughes, who struck gold in ``Home Alone,'' mines the same vein in this miniature version of the child-against-bad-guys story.

The difference is that in ``Home Alone,'' the youngster used ingenuity to deliberately foil his adversaries. In the junior version, the baby unwittingly outmaneuvers his increasingly frustrated and battered foes, oblivious to the danger he's constantly in. This difference robs the audiences of a sense of satisfaction.

The audience also has to have a high pain threshold to endure this comedy of calamity. Like the bungling burglars in ``Home Alone,'' the trio of kidnappers in ``Baby's Day Out'' are Wile E. Coyotes to the child's Road Runner. Every two minutes severe pain is inflicted on one or all of the buffoonish villains.

Joe Mantegna, as the dim-witted ``brains'' behind the operation, has his crotch set on fire and stomped. In fact, the genitals are probably the most assaulted target on all the men.

Some of the reactions to the cruelties and indignities heaped on the deserving bozo are funny, but how many amusingly pained faces can three actors make for 90 minutes straight? The baby who gets kidnapped and then leads them on a merry chase through the big city, including a stop in the gorilla's cage at the zoo, is suitably adorable.

A cute kid and one joke are the sum of this comedy's attributes.

by CNB