The Baltimore Sun from Baltimore, Maryland • 27

WEDNESDAY, JULY 1, 1987 THE SUN TODAY 7B 'Babysitting' slips into banality despite promising start, star EDDIE MURPHY BIEVEBLYJilU PS tin THE HEAT'S BACK ON! 'Adventures in Babysitting' Starring Elizabeth Shue. Directed by Chris Columbus. Distributed by Touchstone. Rated PG-13. an THE Hendeihow NOW SHOWING JF ROTUNDA CINEMAS 235-1600 11 HARUNDALE CINEMA 761-6055 AMIil JF S-STAR CINEMAS 358-6656 TIMONIUM CINEMA 252-2202 JF COLUMBIA PALACE 9 730-4600 III A UNIVERSAL Pictur if UNiWIRSAlClt StUDlOS IMC SoundtiKh Audible oti MCA Retoids and Cusefiti Reid the BERKLEY Booh UA GOLDEN RINO 574-3333 JF CAMPUS HILLS CINEMAS I II 636-9131 iwsTfHEO WESTVIEW CINEMA 747-3800 NOW PLAYING UA HARBOR PARK 037-3500 EDQEWATER TWIN 679-9494 iNSTrnio JF HIPPODROME Alio: 539-4775 Golden Child HARUNDALE CINEMA 761-6055 COLUMBIA CINEMAS 997-9010 YORK ROAD CINEMA 377-4200 CD JF REISTERSTOWN TWIN 358 0500 IN STEREO UA-MOVIES GOLDEN RING 574-333 TOLLGATE 879-4830838-7077 It's AWESOME! Critics Audiences Agree! But the Haw In the film Is that the adventures don't mount or build, they simply accumulate.

That Is to say. they feel arbitrary and hectic, but unrelated sequential, rather than exponential; and they aren't particularly clever. Shue and charges find themselves absorbed Into a car-theft ring, then chased across Chicago by Its minions because one of the boys, unbeknownst to all, has purloined a Playboy with some key Info doodled across Miss April (who happens, In another stroke that doesn't quite pay off, to resemble Shue). Other stops on the way are a blues Joint, a University of Chicago fraternity party that feels like an SAE bash at the University of Alabama (highly unlikely, says this old Chicagoan), an el train ride interrupted by two street gangs, and so on and so forth. There's the de ri-geur absorption Into cool black culture of the whltebread suburbanites as an additional subtext.

Shue tries desperately to hold this together and she has one lovely though preposterous moment when she's forced to "sing the blues" In the blues Joint. It's a transparent excuse to get her moving to the music and to get a video out of her moves but the moves are pretty spectacular. As for the rest of the movie surrounding her high moments, it's both predictable and loud. Shue tries, but Meryl Streep couldn't make it fly. f0 BABYSITTING, from IB Chris Parker, familiar from every high school In America: bright, competent, hard-working, perhaps Just a little befuddled by herself and her society.

When first we see her, she's getting ready for a big date, and as she dances around the room to the strains of "And Then He Kissed Her" the bit seems borrowed from a similar star-making turn for Tom Cruise In "Risky Business" the movie fills with energy and life. Unfortunately, soon enough the story starts, and the energy and life fall-down-go-boom. Her boyfriend stands her up and, In rapid order, Chris has volunteered for a baby-sitting job against her best wishes and soon finds herself In the reluctant care of a teen-age boy (Keith Coogan). his pal (Anthony Rapp), and his 8-year-old brat of a sister (Penelope Ann Miller). Suddenly the phone rings: It's one of her friends, who has run away from home and needs desperately to be picked up downtown at the bus station.

Anybody who's baby-sat I jpeak as a vet will see the prob-en? Immediately: Chris has to violate eery ethical canon of the babysitter's creed In order for the movie to continue, but even as she does so, she can't exile herself from her audience's sympathies and affections. It doesn't quite work, Shue's attractiveness notwithstanding. Chris makes the wrong decision and some people here's one Just won't be able to enter the movie with the properly unfettered spirit, because everything she does thereafter seems somehow tainted by her stupidity. Chris decides to load the kids Into the station wagon and head down to the big mean city to rescue her pal. Before you can say bad to worse, the rescue mission has become an odyssey through an urban hell, with each disastrous adventure (a flat tire, for example) being shortly afterward trumped by an even more disastrous adventure (car thieves, for example), all of which place her and her charges Into more and more Jeopardy, and all of which she handles with aplomb and finesse she is, after all, the best little girl in the class.

"The best mass-audience film since the sainted 'EX' It will make a lot of people very happy!" "I've lost my heart. It's rated for genuine, generous and go at once. You have to be dead not to like it." AT THE MOVIES, Ren Reed DALLAS MORNING NEWS UK Distributed by BUENA VISTA PICTURES DISTRIBUTION I987 The Win Dnney Compmy bs Of6 FOR INFORMATION CALL 783-8000 NOW SHOWING! JF COLUMBIA PALACE 9 Rt. 1M Opp. Ptwlpi Luck Oi.

7304(00 PERRING PLAZA Beltway Exit 30 666-3111 JF REISTERSTOWN TWIN AenterstOMi Road Plaza 356-0500 UA HARBOR PARK Market PI. A Lombard 137-3500 JF GLEN BURNIE CN. 7 BAA Blvd. al Ritchie Hwy. 761-0300 -IN STEREO- UA MARLEY STATION I Ritchie Hwy at Rt.

100 760-3300 I WESTVIEW MM Barlo. Nell Pe 747-3M0 UA GOLDEN RING Gokttn Ring Mall 574-3333 I mom (tiwrfc)f ncruB I COW 10 JULY 17 Fiona vistr lip MOW PLAYING! VANISH DI1 RIO TSIPU FMTURI Kept me 1 "CORRUPTION" 2 "FOXTROT" (km) TV laughing 3 "BABYLON COLD rrom start to finish." Judith Crist. WWOHTV(NY) ESS "MEL BROOKS MOST HYSTERICALLY WSJ NOW SHOWING AT THESE THEATRES rjra tin FUNNY MOVIE SINCE COLUMBIA CINEMA 997-9010 'BLAZING SADDLES!" TIMONIUM CINEMA 252-2202 Rex Reed, AT THE MOVIES RITCHIE CINEMAS 768-3440 HARFORD MALL CINEMAS 838-6688 XQ.gD. 4 miiA(L JFTOWN 539-2294 I If JF5-STAR CINEMAS 358-6656 mj 4 5" Hp MM- UA GOLDEN RING 574-3333 mi UA HARBOR PARK 837-3500 I I UA MARLEY STATION 760-3300 v. IN STEREO WESTVIEW CINEMA 747-3800 mjs A A rt irt 'Roxanne' is a treasure an absolute enchantment" Stephen Hunter, BALTIMC )RE SUN "A Lou Cedrone, BALTIMORE EVENING SUN STEVE MARTIN DARYL HANNAH RQNNE PGL 94 SELECTED THEATRES in now showing JF YORKRIDGE 4 rv.r:ir.iij.:y.'CTB!griTD 252-2256 IN STEREO JF COLUMBIA PALACE 9 730-4600 IN STEREO JF ROTUNDA iff 235-1800 IN STEREO WESTVIEW 747-3800 IN STEREO JUMPERS MALL WESTVIEW 6000 Balto.Nafl Pike 747-3800 HARFORD MALL CINEMAS Bel Air 838-6688 Dlml JF COLUMBIA PALACE 9 Rt.108 opp.

Phelps Luck Dr. 730-4600 ste Ritchie Hwy Hole 768-5151 UA-MOVIES GOLDEN RING 574-3333 RITCHIE CINEMAS 768-3440 UA-MOVIES HARBOR PARK Market PlaceLombard St. 837-3500 -T -V UA-MOVIES GOLDEN RING Golden Ring Mall 574-3333 JF 5-STAR CINEMAS Reisterstown Rd. Plaza 358-6656 JF YORKRIDGE 4 Roads 252-2256 UA MARLEY STATION kNSTTREO IN STEREO 760-3360.