Look Who’s Talking Now!

1993

Directed by Tom Ropelewski

Welcome back to Movie Monday, dear readers! We’re continuing our painful journey down my list of the worst movies I’ve ever seen, and today we’ve reached number 54: Look Who’s Talking Now! from 1993. As always, this list is purely my opinion, so if you happen to love this canine catastrophe, more power to you. But prepare yourself – we’re about to dig into why this third installment in the Look Who’s Talking franchise should have been put down before it ever saw the light of day.

When Lightning Doesn’t Strike Thrice

Let’s be honest here: the original Look Who’s Talking (1989) was actually decent. Bruce Willis voicing baby Mikey’s thoughts was charming, John Travolta and Kirstie Alley had genuine chemistry, and the concept felt fresh enough to work. But like most Hollywood executives faced with a successful formula, they decided to beat this dead horse until it was nothing but glue. Look Who’s Talking Too (1990) was already pushing it, and by the time we got to Look Who’s Talking Now!, the franchise had officially jumped the shark – or in this case, jumped the fire hydrant.

The 1993 sequel takes the revolutionary approach of… wait for it… having the family get dogs whose inner thoughts we can hear! Because apparently, the screenwriting machine that Roger Ebert accused of “chucking up” this movie couldn’t come up with anything more creative than “What if we did the same thing, but with pets?”

A Plot That’s All Bark and No Bite

Look Who’s Talking Now! centers around James and Mollie Ubriacco (Travolta and Alley, returning because presumably their agents told them it would be easy money) and their two kids, Mikey and Julie. When James gets a job as a private jet pilot for the suspiciously named Samantha D’Bonne – and yes, that’s about as subtle as this movie gets – he ends up adopting a street-smart mutt named Rocks, voiced by Danny DeVito. Meanwhile, Samantha brings over a pretentious poodle named Daphne, voiced by Diane Keaton, setting up what the writers apparently thought would be hilarious class-warfare hijinks between the dogs.

The plot, such as it is, involves Samantha trying to seduce James away from his family during a Christmas Eve trip to upstate New York, while the dogs learn valuable lessons about family and acceptance. Spoiler alert: Rocks saves the day, everyone learns something, and audiences everywhere wonder why they didn’t just watch Home Alone again.

What’s particularly galling about this setup is how it completely abandons what made the original concept work. The first film’s charm came from the idea that we could hear what babies were actually thinking – it was relatable because we’ve all wondered what goes on in those little heads. But dogs? We already know what dogs are thinking: food, walk, squirrel, sleep, repeat. There’s no mystery there to unlock, no clever observations to be made. It’s just DeVito making wise-guy comments while a big mutt runs around.

The Cast: Phoning It In From the Dog House

John Travolta and Kirstie Alley deserve credit for showing up and trying to sell this material, but even their considerable charm can’t save a script that feels like it was written during a particularly uninspired Mad Libs session. Travolta, in particular, seems to be running on autopilot, which is ironic considering his character literally pilots planes in this movie.

The real crime here is wasting Danny DeVito and Diane Keaton on voice work that gives them absolutely nothing interesting to do. DeVito essentially plays his usual gruff, streetwise character, except now he’s a dog who pees on things. Keaton gets stuck being the uptight, educated foil, because apparently the only thing funnier than class conflict between humans is class conflict between dogs.

Here’s a fun bit of trivia that perfectly encapsulates this movie’s problems: Nicole Kidman, Candice Bergen, Sarah Jessica Parker, Bette Midler, and Kathy Najimy were all considered for Daphne’s voice. Imagine any of those talented actresses reading this script and thinking, “You know what? I’ll pass on being a talking poodle today.”

The child actors, David Gallagher and Tabitha Lupien (in her debut, poor kid), do what they can with roles that basically require them to react to CGI dog mouth movements. At least Gallagher got to show off some legitimate basketball skills and would later redeem himself by working with Travolta again in Phenomenon – a significantly better film.

Production Values: A Real Dog’s Breakfast

With a budget of $22 million, you’d think Look Who’s Talking Now! could at least look decent. And to be fair, it doesn’t look terrible – it just looks aggressively mediocre. The direction by Tom Ropelewski (who also co-wrote this masterpiece) is workmanlike at best, hitting all the expected beats without any flair or personality.

The real production story here is in the numbers: this thing made only $10.3 million worldwide against its $22 million budget, making it one of the biggest bombs of 1993. It had the misfortune of opening against The Nightmare Before Christmas, which probably didn’t help, but let’s be honest – this movie was going to be a disaster regardless of the competition.

Here’s where the trivia gets interesting: Kirstie Alley actually missed the Cheers finale celebration to film this movie. Imagine choosing to make Look Who’s Talking Now! instead of celebrating the end of one of television’s greatest sitcoms.

Critical Mauling (Pun Intended)

The critical reception was about as warm as you’d expect for a movie about talking dogs. Look Who’s Talking Now! achieved the impressive feat of earning a 0% rating on Rotten Tomatoes – and that’s not hyperbole, that’s an actual goose egg from 25 critics. The site’s consensus reads simply: “Look Who’s Talking Now: Look away.” Even the critics were phoning it in at this point.

Roger Ebert, never one to mince words, gave it one star and delivered that perfect line about it looking “chucked up by an automatic screenwriting machine.” Gene Siskel was even harsher, awarding it zero stars and calling it “an abysmal, embarrassing sequel.” When Gene Siskel gives your movie zero stars, you know you’ve really screwed up.

The Washington Post‘s Rita Kempley had perhaps the most creative pan, writing: “Take the ‘dle’ out of ‘poodle’ and you’ve pretty much got the leitmotif of Look Who’s Talking Now.” That’s the kind of wordplay this movie desperately needed but never achieved.

Surprisingly, The New York Times‘ Stephen Holden found something kind to say, noting that “the sound of stars mouthing the inner thoughts of dogs is somehow funnier than that of grownup actors doing wisecracking voice overs for gurgling infants.” This is damning with faint praise of the highest order – essentially saying, “Well, at least it’s not as annoying as babies talking.”

The Christmas Connection Nobody Asked For

One of the movie’s many baffling choices is setting the action during Christmas, as if slapping some holiday decorations on this mess would somehow make it more appealing to families. The Christmas elements feel completely tacked on, serving no real purpose other than to give Mikey a crisis of faith when he discovers mall Santa isn’t real. Because nothing says “holiday magic” quite like existential dread and talking dogs.

There’s even a Kirstie Alley reference to her Star Trek days when she tells a little girl, “No, I’m a Vulcan” while working as a mall elf. It’s a cute nod to her breakout role in The Wrath of Khan, but it also serves as a painful reminder of when Alley was in actually good movies.

The film tries to manufacture some Christmas sentiment with the idea that Rocks the dog represents the true spirit of the season – loyalty, family, acceptance, blah blah blah. But when your Christmas message is delivered by a dog who spends most of the movie peeing on things, maybe it’s time to reconsider your narrative choices.

A Franchise’s Death Rattle

Perhaps the most tragic thing about Look Who’s Talking Now! is that it killed a franchise that had shown real potential. The original film proved that high-concept family comedies could work when they had heart, humor, and genuine insight into family dynamics. This third installment has none of those qualities, instead relying on the assumption that audiences would show up for anything with the Look Who’s Talking brand on it.

The movie’s failure effectively ended the series, though given the quality on display here, that might have been a mercy killing. It’s telling that this is the only film in the trilogy not to open with the famous uterus scene – even the filmmakers seemed to know they were phoning it in at this point.

Look Who’s Talking Now! stands as a perfect example of how Hollywood can take a perfectly good idea and run it straight into the ground through laziness, greed, and a fundamental misunderstanding of what made the original work. It’s a movie that exists purely because the previous films made money, not because anyone had a story worth telling.

Final Verdict: This Dog Won’t Hunt

Look Who’s Talking Now! isn’t just a bad movie – it’s a lazy one, which is somehow worse. Bad movies can at least be entertaining in their awfulness, but lazy movies just waste your time while insulting your intelligence. This is filmmaking by committee at its most cynical, a product designed to separate families from their money during the holiday season without offering anything worthwhile in return.

The fact that talented people like DeVito, Keaton, Travolta, and Alley all signed on for this project just makes it more depressing. These are actors who have proven they can elevate mediocre material, but even they can’t save a script that feels like it was written by someone who had never seen the previous films and only had talking animals explained to them secondhand.

If you’re feeling nostalgic for the Look Who’s Talking franchise, do yourself a favor and just rewatch the original. Leave Look Who’s Talking Now! in the doghouse where it belongs. Trust me, this is one sleeping dog you don’t want to wake.