Early eighties, cheesy, low budget, badly dubbed, yes, but Babes in Toyland still has the power to entertain and fill with the joy of toys, childhood and Christmas. No-one in the film was brilliant, even Drew Barrymore and Pat Morita struggled in places and were a little acting-by-numbers but there was also some great chemistry on screen and Barrymore, Reeves, Schoelen and Gress looked genuinely like they were enjoying themselves and given the subject matter were pretty committed to role, even if it was a bit hammed up. The worse bit of the film was definitely the dubbing (worse than films of that era generally) and the songs were terrible. I think the actor's voices were used but it was obvious who the good singers were(Reeves has a good voice) and who's dubbing was totally someone else. The bad guy Mulligan was good at being bad and Eileen Brennan brought a little of comedy in her familiar style to the film.
Definitely a children's film, although not nervous children as the bad monsters were pretty awful looking, but it was light, fun with lots of familiar characters to recognise. Probably just enough for adults in the film too - some slapstick antics from the two bad sidekicks Mack and Zack - and the car chase scene was a bit of a giggle. Reeves pulls off a rather impressive stunt type skid in the Toyland car, which was probably quite hard to do given the slow speed! This wasn't as bad as I expected, and whilst it is incredible low budget and massively dated, there were some entertaining performances. Drew Barrymore (even badly dubbed to the point of jet lag) is always good to watch and Keanu Reeves swashbuckling around as Jack be Nimble (jnr) when he was in his early twenties is... well... a pleasure.
Definitely a children's film, although not nervous children as the bad monsters were pretty awful looking, but it was light, fun with lots of familiar characters to recognise. Probably just enough for adults in the film too - some slapstick antics from the two bad sidekicks Mack and Zack - and the car chase scene was a bit of a giggle. Reeves pulls off a rather impressive stunt type skid in the Toyland car, which was probably quite hard to do given the slow speed! This wasn't as bad as I expected, and whilst it is incredible low budget and massively dated, there were some entertaining performances. Drew Barrymore (even badly dubbed to the point of jet lag) is always good to watch and Keanu Reeves swashbuckling around as Jack be Nimble (jnr) when he was in his early twenties is... well... a pleasure.