Adventures in Babysitting

• Chris Parker (Elisabeth Shue of Cousin Bette, Leaving Las Vegas) agrees to babysit after her dread date stands her up. Expecting a dull evening, Chris settles down with three kids for a night of TV.and boredom. But when her frantic friend Brenda calls and pleads to be rescued from the bus station in downtown Chicago, the evening soon explodes into an endless whirl of hair-raising adventures! Baby

Imagine experiencing life through the eyes of an innocent child forever. Beautiful and vibrant, Molly McKay might have a mental disability but she's not about to let the world pass her by. Starring Academy AwardÂ(r) nominee* Elizabeth Shue in an inspired performance, Molly is a joyous celebration of the irrepressible human spirit. Autistic since birth, 28-year-old Molly (Shue) isa carefree young woman with an incredible zest for life. Her brother Buck (Aaron Eckhart), a 32-year-old with a full soc! ial calendar and a booming career, has had little contact with Molly over the yearsuntil the facility that cares for her closes down. Now it's up to Buck to take his sister in and that's turning into a full-time job! Bold, childlike and very energetic, Molly completely envelops her brother's life and turns his ordered world into chaos. Then, just when Buck is at his wit's end, Molly becomes a candidate for a new medical procedure that could cure her completely but is it worth the risk? Molly sure thinks so'she's ready to experience everything! *1995: Actress, Leaving Las VegasThe title character of Molly, played by Elisabeth Shue (Oscar nominee for Leaving Las Vegas), suffers from one of those afflictions that are only found in Hollywood movies: she's sort of mentally challenged, sort of autistic--but only enough to give her a childlike appreciation of rhythmic water fountains and The Wizard of Oz. An operation that somehow activates brain cells brings! Molly to a more sophisticated level of intelligence, much to ! the asto nishment and joy of her brother Buck (Aaron Eckhart, playing a much more sympathetic character than he did in In the Company of Men). Then, when her brain cell progress becomes threatened for some unclear reason, Molly and Buck are faced with her mental reversal. Aside from being scientifically dubious and somewhat insulting to mentally challenged people and their families, the developing sibling relationship has an emotional pull. Eckhart brings a quiet dignity to his role, lending a bit of realism with his understated performance. Shue, though saddled with an impossible character, has moments of naked emotion that almost make Molly believable. Thomas Jane (Deep Blue Sea), as a medical assistant with a never-explained "learning disability," does all he can with his equally inconsistent part but fares less well. Molly wants to be a combination of Forrest Gump and Flowers for Algernon, movies about discovering the meaning of life through an ! appreciation of simple things, but falls short. --Bret Fetzer Chris Parker (Elisabeth Shue) agrees to babysit after her "dream" date stands her up. Expecting a dull evening, Chris settles down with three kids for a night of TV ... and boredom. But when her frantic friend Brenda calls and pleads to be rescued from the bus station in downtown Chicago, the evening soon explodes into an endless whirl of hair-raising adventures! Babysitter and kids leave their safe suburban surroundings and head for the heart of the big city, never imagining how terrifyingly funny their expedition will become.Way before she grabbed an Oscar nomination for her searing performance as a world-weary prostitute in Leaving Las Vegas, Elisabeth Shue was known as one of the squeaky-clean actresses of the '80s. Having made a splash in The Karate Kid and the '60s-nostalgia TV series Call to Glory, Shue cemented her good-girl reputation with the charming but badly titled ! Adventures in Babysitting. Set in the John Hughes-style! suburbs of Chicago, the titular adventures follow babysitter Chris (Shue), who agrees to watch the Anderson kids (Keith Coogan and Maia Brewton) when her boyfriend cancels their anniversary date. All is quiet on the home front until Chris is called upon to rescue her best friend (Penelope Ann Miller, also doing good-girl duty) from the seedy downtown bus station. She can't leave the kids, and she can't leave her friend alone in the big bad city, so she packs everyone in the station wagon and heads into Chicago. Screwball craziness begins as they encounter car thieves, knife-wielding gangs, gun-toting truck drivers, and, worst of all, Chris's duplicitous boyfriend. It's hardly mature entertainment, but Shue makes it work; when she wins over the audience at a blues club with her improv singing, you'll be won over, too. In his directorial debut, Chris Columbus (who later went on to helm the sap-fests Mrs. Doubtfire and Home Alone) gently skewers the suburbia white-bread ! mindset of the main characters, and plays up the comedy over the schmaltz with a subtlety of which he now seems incapable; the near romance between Shue and Coogan is played lightly and adorably. Look for brief appearances by art-house faves Lolita Davidovich as a college party girl and Vincent D'Onofrio as an unlikely savior. --Mark Englehart