Staff writers Chris Mellides and Najib Aminy have taken up the task to review some of the more notable American cult classics back in the past couple of decades. Junior was the first movie both writers agreed upon reviewing.
By Chris Mellides
Just when you thought it was safe to go to the movies, Hollywood goes ahead and pumps out what I venomously call the worst comedy of all time. Moviegoers of the early 1990s collectively puked in their soups thanks to the genius vision shared by Kevin Wade and Chris Conrad, a pathetic writing duo that ended up hand delivering their crummy screenplay to director Ivan Reitman. The end product, of course, was Junior. This film, whose 1994 theatrical release marked the decline of Western civilization, stars Danny DeVito, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Emma Thompson.
Schwarzenegger plays Dr. Alex Hesse and therein lies the first problem. Is anyone else concerned about this casting choice? As viewers, are we honestly expected to believe that this muscle-bound buffoon actually received a doctorate degree? Smoking dope and taking daily rectal shots of bovine growth hormones hardly screams, “Hey, I’m a doctor!” However, if you’re able to look passed Schwarzenegger’s personal life and how he’s likely to be perceived by the general population, you’ll rest easy knowing that his acting was terrible in this picture and the dry humor he used to issue cheap laughs was mind-numbingly painful.
So, the story goes like this. Dr. Hesse works with a team of gynecological rejects in some lab with the intent of creating a fertility drug that lessens the chance of miscarriage in pregnant women. Danny DeVito plays Dr. Larry Arbogast and acts as Schwarzenegger’s friend and colleague. When the two would-be scientists are denied funding for their work and human experimentation is prohibited, they decide to test the drug on Hesse. An egg is snatched away from Dr. Diana Reddin, played by Emma Thompson and is then fertilized with Hesse’s super spunk before being inserted into the good doctor’s abdominal cavity. The experiment was only supposed to last a few short weeks but Hesse goes baby crazy and decides to keep the tiny creature growing inside of him. The whole thing is a little reminiscent of Sigourney Weaver’s role as Ellen Ripley in the 1979 classic Alien, only more terrifying.
Not even the Jaws of Life could pry the image of a pregnant Schwarzenegger from my fragile mind. Imagine my disgust when I was forced to endure a horrendous piece of cinema slop wherein the Terminator squats over a bedpan to deliver a bastard child from his faux vagina. Gives me the hebe jibes just thinking about it. To make matters worse, in order for a successful pregnancy, Hesse is pumped full of estrogen and progesterone. So, halfway into the film he turns into a moody bitch with supple breasts. It’s later revealed that Hesse has the hots for Reddin and the two try to make a go of it. Meanwhile, that bridge troll Arbogast has his hands full. Not only does he have to console Hesse, he also has to deal with the cruel reminder that his ex-wife was knocked up by Aerosmith front man, Steven Tyler.
The most interesting bit in the movie was when a former colleague of Hesse finds out about the meathead’s pregnancy and wants him locked up until he pops out the kid so his name can get in the papers. This prompts Hesse and Arbogast to run away to a home for expecting mothers. In order to blend in, Hesse throws on a blonde wig and a summer dress and claims that he was a female Olympic athlete who was regularly exposed to steroids while competing in the Games. His tree trunk of a penis should have been enough to debunk this poorly crafted lie, but the rest of the pregnant women buy it, regardless of how ridiculous it sounds and Schwarzenegger looks.
Junior ends in the typical Hollywood happy-go-lucky fashion. Hesse gets a caesarian section and gets together with Reddin who ends up giving birth to their second kid. Then, Arbogast gets back together with his ex and they raise Steven Tyler’s baby. Finally, the movie ends and I die a little inside for having to sit through it again, for the purpose of this review.
