Average Rating: 6.5/10
Reviews Counted: 106
Fresh: 74 | Rotten: 32
Babies is a joyous celebration of humankind that's loaded with adorable images, but it lacks insight and depth.
Average Rating: 7/10
Critic Reviews: 29
Fresh: 24 | Rotten: 5
Babies is a joyous celebration of humankind that's loaded with adorable images, but it lacks insight and depth.
liked it
Average Rating: 3.3/5
User Ratings: 33,698
Re-defining the nonfiction art form, Babies joyfully captures on film the earliest stages of the journey of humanity that are at once unique and universal to us all. The film simultaneously follows four babies around the world -- from birth to first steps. The children are, in order of on-screen introduction: Ponijao, who lives with her family near Opuwo, Namibia; Bayarjargal, who resides with his family in Mongolia, near Bayanchandmani; Mari, who lives with her family in Tokyo, Japan; and
May 7, 2010 Wide
Sep 28, 2010
$6.0M
Focus Features
All Critics (106) | Top Critics (29) | Fresh (74) | Rotten (32)
The movie is pleasing -- who doesn't love gurgling babies? -- but as anodyne as a series of episodes from America's Funniest Home Videos.
Presents itself as an ethnographic meditation on the first year of life but is better approached as an "oooooh" and "awww" fest...
Really, it's a nature documentary, except that the topic is human nature and the subjects are the only humans on the planet whose behaviour is unaffected by the camera.
Blessed with no narration, an absence of gimmickry and an embracing love for its subject matter, Babies is as sweet, joyful and filled with curiosity as a you-know-what.
Babies begins to gain telling traction as the small triumphs start to come faster toward the sixth-month mark. Things begin to look up once the infants begin to, well, look up.
Watch a baby for a while and chances are you'll be entertained. Multiply that times four and you have BabiesM/em>, a documentary as funny, charming and un-self-conscious as its subjects.
On a scale of one to a hundred (one featuring no babies at all, and a hundred featuring all the babies in all of existence) this film could still only be classified as 'babies'.
We realise this is humanity at its most homogenous; we begin to go separate ways only when our surrounding culture shoves us into its own strictures
With deft editing, we journey back and forth sharing the first 12 months with each child. What impact does the environment have on each baby? That is the intriguing question and as we observe and decide for ourselves
Inaugura um novo gênero: o do "filme-awwwwww".
It won't make a dent in the box office and it can hardly be considered essential viewing, but it's serene, unpretentious, and boasts more than enough cute moments to justify its existence. Parents, I imagine, will love it.
A simple idea, but very nicely done by French documentarian Thomas Balmès.
The intimate footage draws attention to the obvious contrasts between plenty and poverty.
Director Thomas Balmès has a hands-off and words-off style of direction. It's to be welcomed. We all know the sort of thing mums and dads say to babies, so subtitles would be extraneous.
The baby stars were given the go ahead to improvise every scene. The magic came in the editing suite (Raymond Bertrand, Craig McKay).
...an absolutely interminable piece of work that seems destined to send most viewers into protracted fits of daydreaming.
It has cute kids and cute animals, mothers and fathers interacting in interesting ways, and a demonstration of some cultural differences, too.
Because of the inherent adorability of the four stars of this French documentary, it's easy to forgive it for not delivering as much as it should.
Because of the inherent adorability of the four stars of this French documentary, it's easy to forgive it for not delivering as much as it should.
Precious as all get out...but it cries out for more insight and inspiration.
This isn't a movie. It's a screensaver.
More like a home movie than a feature length film.
When forced to watch home movies %u2014 and this is simply a glorified home movie %u2014 most of us nod and smile and start checking our watches.
A beautiful and entirely embraceable bit of cinema, and a welcome break from the pablum normally served up at theaters this time of year.
Babies is one of the most human fly-on-the-wall docs I've ever come across.
For the first part of the movie the cuteness of the babies is enough but after that the sameness of the film starts to sink in and the need for something else arises.
Everybody loves... Good documentary! The film, stands on its own as a joyous celebration of the first year of life for four youngsters in different parts of the world. Filmed without narration, subtitles, or any comprehensible dialogue, Babies is a direct encounter with four babies who stumble their predictable ways to
February 21, 2011
Super Reviewer
When a sequel comes out I like to go back and watch the previous movies to refresh my memory so I don't miss anything. Well, in June we're having our first child, and what better way to get ready than to watch a documentary called "Babies." This is probably the cutest movie you will ever see. No narration, just four
May 16, 2011Super Reviewer
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