DENNIS DUGAN
Bil’s rating (out of 5): BB.
USA, 1990. Universal Pictures, Imagine Entertainment. Screenplay by Scott Alexander, Larry Karaszewski. Cinematography by Peter Lyons Collister. Produced by Robert Simonds. Music by Miles Goodman. Production Design by George Costello. Costume Design by Eileen Kennedy. Film Editing by Tom Finan, Daniel P. Hanley, Mike Hill.
When a happily married couple learn that they can’t have kids, they decide to adopt one instead. After visiting a local orphanage, a worn-out nun decides to give them a holy terror of a child (Michael Oliver) who has been in and out of foster homes since he was a baby. He’s the kind of kid that has made the old-fashioned types nervous about adoption in the first place, turning the happy couple’s home upside down and terrorizing the neighbours; he evens cuts girls’ braids off! John Ritter is appropriately stupefied as the father and Amy Yasbeck exasperated as the mother. Oliver has great fun tearing up the screen, but it’s a movie in a no-brainer kind of way, but successful enough to inspire the creation of a sequel.
