A made-for-TV movie featuring some of the most popular young stars of the day, Babes in Toyland is a modern take on the Victor Herbert operetta. Featuring very few of the original songs, this movie is a very loose adaptation of the original stage production, tweaked in various ways to make it work for the small screen. Unfortunately, the end result is an uninspired mess that misses the mark on many levels.
TV movies are held to a slightly different set of standards but they are still considered movies to me. Movies made for the small screen always have low budgets and the visual effects and props usually suffer. I try to take this sort of thing into account when I watch a made-for-TV movie. Still, in terms of what was possible back in 1986, Babes in Toyland is weak.
Drew Barrymore stars as Lisa Piper, a girl who has very little time for toys because she has to help pitch in for her family. One night, she is riding home with her sister and the boy her sister likes when a blizzard strikes and their car goes off the road. Lisa is transported into the magical world of Toyland, where toys are life size and characters from Mother Goose’s fairy tales populate the village.
The problem is that things are oversimplified in Toyland. I’m not sure if that’s the point or not though, as I have not seen the stage production or any of the prior film adaptations of it. But to me, it seems silly and campy for the 11-year-old lead to come up with all the best ideas, leaving the adults to smile and say “Ooooh!” like a bunch of simpletons. I can see how it might appeal to kids, which is certainly what they were going for, but it still rubs me the wrong way.
The effects are bad, even by TV movie standards, and the costumes are all a little too much. The cast either overacts or under-acts, leaving the finished product feeling like a bipolar mishmash of camp and boredom. The characters in Toyland are exaggerated versions of their counterparts in the real world as well.
What I took away from Babes in Toyland most of all was how similar it is to The Wizard of Oz. As it would turn out, the operetta was written in response to the success of a stage production of The Wizard of Oz. It replicated the same basic premise but changed things enough to avoid any accusations of plagiarism. With this in mind, it’s hard to imagine any version of Babes in Toyland rating too exceptionally high.
While the original story is a bit of a rip-off itself, the 1986 version of Babes in Toyland feels like an uninspired modernization of something that was probably much better. Still, it’s a TV movie. Had this been a major release, I would have torn it to pieces with my rating scale. Since it was a small screen affair, I’ll be nice.
A made-for-TV movie featuring some of the most popular young stars of the day, Babes in Toyland is a modern take on the Victor Herbert operetta. Featuring very few of the original songs, this movie is a very loose adaptation of the original stage production, tweaked in various ways to make it work for the small screen. Unfortunately, the end result is an uninspired mess that misses the mark on many levels.
No comments:
Post a Comment