Honey, I Shrunk the Kids belongs in the canon of classic live-action Disney movies. It's a fun and clever movie with memorable characters and strong performances. The story works for children and adults and the special effects are still pretty believable after 20 years. Wow! It really came out over 20 years ago? I suddenly feel old.

This is a great family film about a scientist whose invention inadvertently miniaturises each of his two children and two neighbour kids to a quarter of an inch in height. It shows the kids amongst grass that looks like a forest in comparison, and insects that are bigger than them.

Honey, I Shrunk the Kids (1989)*** (out of 4) Scientist Wayne Szalinski (Rick Moranis) is working on a machine that he hopes will shrink people but it just never works properly. One day his two kids and the two neighbors kids enter his laboratory and, sure enough, it shrinks them. Soon the four kids find themselves in the backyard trying to make their way back to the house.HONEY, I SHRUNK THE KIDS is a film that I thought played much better back when it was released. I loved the movie as a kid and perhaps it was because I could picture myself up on the screen and going through this adventure. Watching the film as an adult, it certainly didn't have the same impact and I'd argue that it hasn't aged all that well but at the same time there are enough good moments to make it worth sitting through.Of course, the highlight of the film are the special effects, which were quite good for the time. The funnest parts of the movie deal with the four kids in the backyard where they must battle everything from ants to bees to even a sprinkler that's water is like bombs going off to them. There are some really funny moments along the way including the rather dimwitted parents who never really seem to know what's going on.It also doesn't hurt that there are some fine performances from the cast. Moranis is charming in his role as the scientist and Matt Frewer gets some good moments as the neighbor. All four of the actors playing the kids do a nice job and the most important thing is that they worked quite well together and helped sell the adventure side of the story.

Rick Moranis is an absent minded inventor. He makes things that are harder to handle than the simple devices he tries to replace. He hopes to make the world easier to live in, but the clean up of his messes takes more time and effort than doing things the conventional way. I'm not spending much time on this because it was never intended as a work of art, but the special effects are good, the Cheerios scene is pretty cool, and we all know it will work out in the end. Moranis is the perfect Schmuck who always seems to stay positive no matter how bad things get. Remember his small but significant part in "Ghostbusters." His family always stands by him, no matter what. And his neighbors continue to see him as a nut. Oh well!