In a brilliant -- if diabolically cynical -- counterprogramming move to service multiplex patrons reluctant to pay $14 to watch men in weapon-laden metal suits clang against one another or deranged German doctors stitch together new pets from unlucky topless tourists (the 'Pede is expanding to 17 screens, everybody! Road trip!), Focus Features is unleashing an army of chubby-limbed, diaper-pooping Babies upon the world this weekend. But what are people saying about the film now that they've finally placed Babies' plump hand in their mouths and pretended to nibble it down to its still-soft phalanges while muttering about how totawwy dewish, yes you are, you yumster widdle yummyface it is? We've rounded up some of the choicest, most adorable (and mostly real) quotes from the early reviews.
"Babies babies babies babies babies-babies Babies, Babies babies babies babies babies babies babies babies babies. (Babies, babies babies babies babies, babies Babies Babies babies babies babies babies babies babies, babies babies babies babies babies babies babies babies babies babies babies.) Babies babies babies Babies babies Babies babies babies babies Babies babies babies Babies Babies, Babies babies babies babies Babies, Babies, Babies, babies Babies babies babies babies, babies, babies, babies, babies, babies babies."
--Dan Kois, The Village Voice
"Babies! Who doesn't love babies?"
--Movieline's own Stephanie Zacharek.
"Pandering to the lowest common denominator of the Bugaboo-pushing American moviegoing public, 'Bortions leads the child-having and the child-coveting alike to the multiplex by their throbbing ovaries, a sickening spectacle that makes me yearn for the mysteriously sterile, dystopic future posited by Children of Men. [...] Expose these Babies on the side of the nearest mountain. Fine, maybe not Mari. OMG, is she adorbs. Love her so much."
--Armond White, NY Press.
"Babies is exactly what its title promises. It's babies. And if you love babies you will find it very hard not to love Babies."
--A.O. Scott, The New York Times
"Awwwwww, Ewwww, Who's a Good Baby?"
--The headline for A.O. Scott's aforementioned review
"There's nothing Hollywood or Gerber about Babies."
--Claudia Puig, USA Today
"Where's my f*cking movie? They can all blow me. Make sure we're clear on this: Blow. Me. Especially Bayarjargal. I hope that g*ddamn goat eats him, but I'm not paying to find out."
--The Gerber Baby
"There is almost literally no difference between watching Babies and just watching a baby."
--Eric D. Snider, Film.com
"It's easy to tell the babies apart in Babies:.. Did I mention the kids are adorable? The kids are adorable."
--Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune
"[Untranscribable sounds of orgasmic rapture, alternating between the sounds of a fat-faced three-year-old mimicking a helicopter takeoff and the air being let out of the pinched neck of a dime-store Baby's First Birthday balloon]"
--Photographer Anne Geddes, before pulling out all of her hair in joy and falling backward into a pile of prop Easter baskets, where she will spend the next three years cooing gently while worried camera assistant feed her pureed carrots from a medicine dropper.
"The babies are cute... Not all of the nipples are real...I dunno. What I do know is that babies are miraculous."
--Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times