Babysitting Night

Jenny Parker is an obsessive organized overachiever who babysits on the side. Irresponsible Lola Perez failed to get into art college. They are both up for an internship for a famous photographer. They accidentally pick up each other's phone. Lola steals Jenny's babysitting job. It goes badly and one of Lola's kids sneak away to the city. Both girls and their gaggle of kids head off on their adventures in babysitting.

I find both Jenny and Lola annoying in the beginning. They are the bickering twins and I have no rooting interest. It's a little while until I find any redeeming quality about them. The little kids are alright and I really like a couple of them. By the police station, I can scrape up some rooting interest against the two bumbling wet bandits. It does fade over time. There are quite a few differences with the original but the most disappointing has to be missing the Thor helmet. With the surging interest in superhero, one would expect a return engagement of the costume. They seem to have replace it with roller derby girl. I like roller derby girl but it's a missed opportunity.

For its 100 made for TV movie the Disney Channel launched its publicity machine for about six weeks. I'm not sure there wasn't one person within the range of a Disney affiliate in the world that did not know that this remake of the 1987 brat pack comedy Adventures In Babysitting. Nothing beats the Disney publicity machine when they want to push one of their products.

Having said that this was an easy to take teen comedy with Sabrina Carpenter and Sofia Carson as rival babysitters who lose one of their charges when she runs off to the big city alone, the big city here being where the film was shot Vancouver. Carpenter and Carson have to team up though they are poles apart in personality. Carpenter is most uptight, especially where heartthrob Kevin Quinn is concerned. Carson is a free spirit who seems to drift not knowing what she wants out of life.

Carpenter, Carson, and Quinn are Disney Channel regulars and young Max Lloyd-Jones who plays a most hunky police officer shows every signs of becoming a Magic Kingdom mainstay. The film borrows quite liberally from the Home Alone franchise where a bunch of McCauley Culkins outwit a pair of singularly inept crooks who want Carson's camera.

Nothing special here, but Adventures In Babysitting Redux is entertaining enough.

I'm not sure if it was as good as the original but it was still a lighthearted movie.

....and this is not it. Where have all the Hollywood writers gone? Is everything now just a remake? Are studios just lazily taking short-cuts to profit earnings? I don't know who decided that one of the most quintessential 80s movies needed a remake for the pre/early-teen Disney generation. Somethings should not be touched. Elizabeth Shue's version of Adventures in Babysitting is absolutely one of those things. The writers took the script of the 1987 version and tweaked it jusssst enough so that kids today could find enjoyment and in doing so, they created a poorly acted cheap thrills forgettable TV movie that fails to capitalize on the legendary status of it's namesake. For what it's worth, I'm a parent and I watched the original version.....and this version......with my kids. They enjoyed the original version more than this one (bonus points for the Thor lookalike). There's no reason anyone should have ever made this film and there's no reason you should ever feel the need to waste an hour or so watching this version as long as the original version still exists.

Now its Maya's (Sabrina Carpenter) turn after Riley's (Rowan Blanchard) 'Invisible Sister'. I'm referring the two best friends from 'Girl Meets World'. This film saw a delayed release and initially it was said to be a sequel to the 80s film of the same name, but now it stated as an official remake. The basic theme was retained and the rest was modified to the present trend. They aimed for G and/or PG, not anything above that, so they had to give up those risky stuffs from the original, hence became a simple one night adventure.

The 100th film under the Disney channel's belt. I neither liked nor disliked it. It's a mixed feeling to me, but if you had loved the original film, which was for all ages, most certainly you won't enjoy this. This film is for those who had not seen the old version and it specially targeted for the little kids and tween audience. The main issue was the film characters doubled with the two babysitters and their two sets of children to be taken care, which means the adventures drastically shrunk.

There's no innovation and those altered scenes didn't do anything to lift the spirit of the narration. Especially the rap song was a disappointment compared to the 'Babysitting Blues' and also weak negative characters let the film down. But the display from the cast was amazing, if only they had refined story upto 60-70% new ideas, it had a good chance to impress the viewers. Overall, as a television film it did fared decently, but only when compared with the original, it goes stumbling.

5/10