Junior (1994) (2020 Reissue)   Starring: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Danny DeVito, Emma Thompson, Frank Langella, Welker White, Lawrence Tierney, Tracey Walter and Judy Collins Distributor: Fabulous Films Ltd / Fremantle Media Enterprises RRP: £9.99 FHED4032 Certificate: PG Release Date: 05 October 2020

Dr. Alex Hesse (Arnold Schwarzenegger) and his associate, Dr. Larry Arbogast (Danny DeVito), develop a wondrous new drug to ensure healthy pregnancies. When the government forbids further testing of their creation, Alex and Larry secretly move forward with a daring plan... to impregnate Alex! Along the way, they must cope with a snooping, villainous research administrator (Frank Langella) and the brilliant, beautiful-but-klutzy scientist, Dr. Diana Reddin (Emma Thompson)...

Seen by many as a spiritual successor to Twins, Junior never really captures the charm or humour that Twins delivered. While their characters names are different, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito could so easily have been playing the same roles as in Twins and the film wouldn't have seemed too much of a stretch of the imagination.

The humour here comes not from the fact Arnie's character is naive and learning things as he's out in the real world for the first time... This time the gags revolve around him going through the same feelings, emotions and body changes as pregnant women endure to bring a new life into the world. While there's the occasional smile to be had here and there, this isn't the laugh out loud movie that it might otherwise have been.

Once again, the onscreen chemistry between Schwarzenegger and DeVito is believable and Emma Thompson gets the opportunity to show her comedic talents, but while she does her best with the material she has to work with, the script has its limitations and her character never really evolves beyond comedy pratfalls,

Extras include a 6 min, 09 sec feature which has interviews with cast and crew talking about film and Theatrical Trailer (2 min, 02 sec).

5

Darren Rea