Horrible Non-Horror! Junior

Junior is the movie about Arnold Schwarzenegger getting pregnant. And I am 29 years old and have somehow never seen it.

Life, what the hell are you?

Did I mention it’s directed by Ivan Reitman and costars Danny DeVito? Meaning, of course, Junior is brought to us by the same golden trio that gave us the wonders of the comedy classic, Twins!*

*Truth: I haven’t seen Twins since its theatrical run in 1988. I recall two things about it: 

1-Ahnahld loudly singing “Yackety Yack” on an airplane and me doing the same whenever the moment calls for it

2-It being hilarious

Also, I was six and a great judge of cinema. Which means Junior couldn’t miss, right?

Quick Plot: Meet Dr. Alex Hesse, a bland scientist on the brink of discovering new fertility treatments with his partner, Dr. Larry Arbogast. After a failed proposal with the uptight FDA and firing from Frank Langella (playing, essentially, the same role he previously mastered in Reitman’s Dave), the pair decide to go rogue and impregnate Hesse for further experimentation while they seek new funding. Toss in Emma Thompson as a sympathetic and clumsy fellow researcher, Pamela Reed (Arnie’s unlucky partner in that other gem, Kindergarden Cop) as DeVito’s ex-wife pregnant with someone involved with Aeorsmith’s baby, and a whole lot of jokes about how crazy women are and bam! A classic is born.

Oh I could continue with the scientific details so adorably skirted over, but considering the very first scene of Junior involves an infant peeing all over Ahhnahhld, do you really care?

Yup, Junior is a film clearly written and financed for the sole purpose of being able to sell it with the simple premise “Arnold Schwarzenegger gets pregnant.” Really, there’s little else you need since the following tricks are clearly going to write themselves:

-Ahhnahld in drag, which naturally means a lot of pink (because that’s what women ear, right?)

-Gay jokes (impressively restrained until the film’s second hour)

-Ahhnahld acting like SUCH a woman by eating pickles, constantly holding his belly, vomiting, crying over commercials, and complaining about how his partner comes home late after he slaves over a pot of spaghetti

There’s not an easy joke Junior doesn’t deliver (ba dom bomp!) but I don’t know that we’re supposed to expect much more. I mean, not EVERY comedy can be Twins, right?

High Points

Emma Thompson may very well be a goddess among women. Saddled with the love interest role as a clumsy scientist, she’s introduced with terrible slapstick yet somehow emerges a wonderful and sunny presence in the film. I laughed from a real place with her pitch perfect delivery of the best come-on in cinema history: 

“Call me old fashioned but I’ll be damned if I’m having a child with a man i’ve never slept with!”

Also, the movie has cute monkey babies! Cute monkey babies!

Random Sightings

That’s Aida 'Janice Soprano' Turturro as DeVito’s assistant, James 'Brenda & Brandon’s Dad' Eckhouse as a fellow doctor, and a gloriously mulleted Chris Meloni as an expectant father

Cringeworthy Moments
“Strong swimmers. Big load. Way to go!”

Three sentences I don’t ever want to hear come out of the mouth of Danny DeVito

I’ve gone on record as saying the nurse slaying in The Exorcist III is easily one of the most terrifying minutes in cinema history. This is true, but you know what’s truer? The fact that this is scarier (as witnessed by the man who posted's reaction: 

Ahhnahld uttering, with far too much conviction, “My body. My choice!”

And just when you think it’s safe and the film has reached its HOUR AND FORTY NINE MINUTE MARK, Ahhnahld eats birthday cake off his toddler’s bare foot

Lessons Learned

In order to make a muscle man appear intelligent, give him glasses and scenes set in a library. It might also help to teach him how to hold books, but we as an audience shouldn’t be so greedy

Steifan is Austrian for something Danny DeVito gets all the time

Any movie made in the ‘90s that featured pregnancy as a major plot point was required to culminate in multiple babies being frantically born on the same stressful evening (see Father of the Bride Part 2, Nine Months)

Rent/Bury/Buy

In true honesty, Junior wasn’t quite as awful as I feared/expected/hoped. Yes, clearly there were moments that will have me giggling until SkyNet becomes self-aware, but Reitman isn’t incompetent, Thompson is a pleasure, DeVito does his thang, and Schwarzenegger’s presence is entertaining in itself. As an instant watch on an in-need-of-a-laugh day, one could do far worse. Most of the humor is at the expense of the film rather than because of it, and isn’t that what we  need more of in life?

And just to end things right, here.