Awfully Good: Junior

January 16th 2013, 12:20am

Last Updated on January 8, 2024

Who’s excited for Arnold’s return to theaters this week in THE LAST STAND? At the very least it has to be better than…

Junior (1994)

Director: Ivan Reitman
Stars: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Danny DeVito, Emma Thompson

The star of THE TERMINATOR, COMMANDO and PREDATOR gets knocked up.

You have to give Arnold credit for even attempting JUNIOR. High concept comedies are risky to begin with. The world’s biggest action hero playing the world’s first pregnant man… well, let’s just say he had to know this column would one day come.

Arnold was momentarily confused until he remembered what an old friend once told him: “Boys have penises. Girls have vaginas.”

1988’s TWINS was a massive success; proving that Schwarzenegger could do (intentional) comedy, Danny DeVito still had the goods, and director Ivan Reitman wouldn’t have to stoop to MY SUPER EX-GIRLFRIEND for another two decades. Lots of people were excited to see the trio re-team six years later, at least until they heard what JUNIOR was about. Here’s a list of things we want to see Arnold Schwarzenegger do (in no particular order): shoot, punch, kick, impale, maim, decapitate, detonate, annihilate, obliterate, decimate and share a terse yet humorous comment about any of the previous actions. And not only does JUNIOR sorely lack any of these things, it only features one joke—the Terminator getting in touch with his feminine side. This might work as a five minute sketch on Saturday Night Live, but as a two-hour romantic comedy? Oh God, no.

“Okay, Sandler. I see your JACK AND JILL and I raise you THIS.”

In JUNIOR, Arnold wears glasses and is thus a brilliant doctor. He and his partner have developed a miracle fertility drug that can prevent miscarriages, but it’s rejected by the FDA and they lose their funding. So the pair does what any sane gynecologists would do: steal a woman’s egg, fertilize it with their sperm and then implant the embryo in to the tall doctor’s stomach for further research. Ignoring the myriad of reasons why this makes no sense from a scientific, physical or logical standpoint, the worst part is that after the five-week testing period is over, Arnold decides he wants to carry the baby to full-term… because he’s lonely. This begins the part of the movie where the former Mr. Olympia transforms in to a full-on pregnant woman to much “hilarity.” He’s moody, emotional and crampy, eats constantly, and thinks his body looks disgusting. (Don’t worry; he tells his colleagues that he has a rare Austrian disease that makes him fat.) But despite all this, he still manages to fall for Emma Thompson, the masculine-attired love interest. See what Ivan Reitman is doing with gender roles here? Genius!

This is a picture of Arnold Schwarzenegger dressed as a woman picking flowers in a meadow. It exists.

The result is much more embarrassing than anything in KINDERGARTEN COP. It’s even worse than that time Arnold wrestled a guy in a bear suit in HERCULES IN NEW YORK. The closest thing to an action scene we get is when the pregnant man is awkwardly chased by campus security while cradling his stomach. He still gets his typical one-liner though, except this time it’s, “My body; my choice!” [shudder] Eventually Arnold goes Full Estrogen and dresses as the world’s ugliest woman to check himself in to a health resort for expectant mothers. Here, JUNIOR takes an oddly serious turn with a sensitive montage that features Schwarzenegger crying, changing imaginary diapers and picking flowers in a field. Then he and Thompson have a heartfelt conversation about their life and future child that might be nice in a movie where the male lead ISN’T A CROSSDRESSING PREGNANT MAN.

But nothing—NOTHING—holds a candle to the baby with a CGI Arnold Face. BEHOLD!

From sensitive nipples to German stiffies, here’s a touching montage of things Schwarzenegger actually says in this movie.

Some of the more disturbing parts, including CGI Arnold Baby, the crossdressing montage and Arnold going in to labor.

Arnold’s sensitive nipples and a ridiculously fake stomach are all you’re going to get.

Can’t wait for TRIPLETS? Buy this movie here!

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