Bebe's Kids

A drunken Robin (voice of Faizon Love) tells the story of his relationship with girlfriend Jamika (Vanessa Bell Calloway) to a bartender. In a flashback, Robin tells how he met Jamika at a friend's funeral. He's immediately smitten by the beautiful secretary, his late friend's lover, but Jamika resists his advances. She agrees to give Robin a ride home, however, and makes a date with him when he befriends Leon (Wayne Collins, Jr.), her sweet son. Robin is ecstatic, but his joy quickly turns to exasperation when Jamika insists on bringing, in addition to Leon, several children she's babysitting--"Bebe's kid's." These tykes--LaShawn (Jonell Greene), Kahlil (Marques Huston) and Pee-Wee (Tone-Loc)--are quite a handful.

Robin drives the group to Fun World, a fascistic amusement park where uniformed security guards enforce strict rules and persecute Bebe's kids, who can never stay out of trouble. Just as Robin gets some time alone with Jamika, he runs into his ex-wife Dorothea (Myra J.) and her friend Vivian (Nell Carter), who decide to interfere in his date. As the women plot to make Jamika jealous, Bebe's kids pick on shy Leon. Then, however, the children unite to lead other kids in a rebellion against the amusement park's controllers. Kahlil is put on trial by a mechanized robot, but the kids escape and comandeer a pirate ship. Meanwhile, Robin proves his love to Jamika by confronting his ex-wife.

The group leaves Fun World and Robin takes Bebe's kids home to their run-down, dirty apartment, where their errant mother has left only a note. Although sympathetic to their plight, Robin orders the kids a pizza and leaves. Jamika quarrels with Robin, who doesn't want to see the kids again. Back in the present, Jamika suddenly visits Robin at the bar, they reconcile and he walks toward her car--in which Leon, and Bebe's kids, are waiting. Resigned to his fate, Robin drives off with his extended family.

Reginald Hudlin's screenplay has a sophistication rarely seen in animated children's features, and includes some jokes that only adults will appreciate. The movie's slim narrative is sustained by Robin's snappy reactions to the kids' misbehavior. Like a Black animated W.C. Fields, Robin constantly deals with the kids' physical and verbal abuse. "I am pissed off to the highest level of pissivity!" he exclaims to Jamika as his day turns into a nightmare. Robin dubs Pee-Wee "test tube baby" and says the kids would "be better off in Ethiopia." He advises Leon to impress Bebe's awful offspring by showing self-confidence, then tells him to "knock the hell out of them kids!" Hudlin also makes several subtle points about the experience of African-Americans within a predominately white society. In a gift shop, Bebe's kids flip through racks of personalized items with names such as Joe, John and Peggy. "How come we can't ever find our names?" LaShawn wonders.

Director Bruce Smith is adroit in his use of animation. Robin's overweight, sluggish appearance and big round eyes make him instantly funny, while Jamika's sloe-eyed beauty lingers in the mind long after the movie ends. The drawing of Leon, however, should have had more depth; he appears as a generic good boy. Among Bebe's kids, Pee-Wee stands out as a baby whose facial expressions make him look older than his age.

The character of Pee-Wee also features the best voice work. The concept of a baby speaking like an adult is cliched, but rap star Tone-Loc's low, growly vocal style puts a wild spin on the idea. Pee-Wee is not cute--when he opens his mouth, he's downright menacing.

Other than a labored ending to the amusement park outing, and some unneeded musical interludes, BEBE'S KIDS is an excellent combination of witty entertainment and realistic social commentary. leave a comment