Producer/writer John Hughes here tries to repeat the success of his one-joke wonder Home Alone with another slice of slapstick and overacting, all spun around a one-line story.

The plot: three baddies (Joe Mantegna, Joe Pantoliano and Brian Haley) kidnap the nine-month old son of wealthy parents, but the little sweetie does a runner (or rather a crawler) and the rest of the film is devoted to baddies, parents and cops chasing after the tot with a charmed life.

This runs like a long-winded Looney Tunes chase, but what works in cartoonland doesn't work with real people.

The lesson? Leave the pratfalls, anvil-on-the-head gags and dangerous stupidity to Wile E Coyote: he's much funnier.