Babies review

The main point of Focus Features new picture "Babies" is that babies are cute. Well generally they are. I've seen some not so cute babies, but for the most part those tiny people are cute and often very humorous to look at as they gaze around seemingly taking in the world around them. Is that enough for a documentary? Meh, sure why not. "Babies" is a pretty original concept and the film carries no narration and very little talking from the parents in the scenes with their children. Sometimes there will be music, but for the most part you're watching pure, raw, baby biz and I really like that.

But I'll say it works like a basic nature documentary sense of something you might see at an IMAX. You watch it, it's interesting and what not but you're always watching it and never really invested into it. It's not like that's a bad thing as it is pretty much designed as such, but it doesn't make me love what I'm seeing. Another point about "Babies" is that it's really a personal preference kind of movie. If you really love babies and/or kids or have never really experienced being around them, then this movie is right up your ally. If you have kids or not really a child person then it still might offer something fresh and interesting for you to view nonetheless, but you'll never like it as much as the first crowd probably. It is a very polished and well shot and edited documentary which includes families from Africa, San Francisco, Tokyo and Mongolia with the first and last families yielding the most interesting footage. For the most part the U.S. and Japanese families are a display of modern world parenting and what not which is all stuff we've seen over and over again. Sure they do cute things like the child getting noticeably frustrated about her toy and all, but there was always something really interesting seeing the other kids with their parents in the dry lands of Africa playing with rocks and bottles or stepping over goats and playing with their siblings in a field.

Clocking in at 73 minutes was also a wise choice as this isn't something that could carry on for a full hour and half or longer. Yes it's polished and looks like a movie, but too much of it might leave you feeling like you just got sucked into watching someones youtube playlist of their baby doing funny little things and you lost track of time. Personally it did take me a little while of watching to really get into it. I'm not a big kid person in truth. I like them well enough, but I'm not wild about em'. I know some day that'll change, but for now that's me. When I did start enjoying the footage it did work me over in the cuteness department and made me smile throughout the rest of the picture and perhaps laugh here and there.

"Babies" is as advertised and it works. I won't say run out and see it or anything like that, but it's nice and different. I'll admit while I didn't fully review Disney Nature's "Oceans" I did quite enjoy that a lot more than expected and while it too has that same lack of emotional investment, it was surprisingly large in scope and photographed several highly impressive and awe inspiring real world events. In the same token some people might call a child's first steps awe inspiring. I wouldn't go that far, but that's just my personal feelings on the matter. However I dare anyone not to smile when a baby laughs. That is undeniably cute always.