First Kid Review (1996) (Throwback Thursday#7)
Director: David Mickey Evans
Writer: Tim Kelleher
Starring: Sinbad, Brock Pierce, Robert Guillaume, Timothy Busfield, Zachery Ty Bryan, Erin Williby
Release Date: August 30, 1996

I watched First Kid constantly back in 1996 and 1997. I was ten, then eleven, and Sinbad was one of those guys whose movies I’d watch on principle. He had that energy where you didn’t really need to know what the movie was about. If Sinbad was in it, you were probably going to laugh, and you were probably going to have a good time. That was enough at that age.

But if I’m being completely honest about why this one got repeated viewings while other Sinbad movies didn’t, at least to the same degree, it had less to do with the comedy and more to do with Erin Williby.

My crushes at that age ran considerably older than me. Pamela Anderson. Lucy Lawless as Xena. Fitness model Kiana Tom from Kianna’s Flex Appeal on ESPN. Sunny from WWF. Women that I had absolutely no business thinking about at that age, and definitely was thinking about anyway. Erin Williby as Katie Warren was different. She was closer to my age, probably a few years older, and I thought she was the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen in a movie. I never saw her in anything else, which felt like an injustice at the time. Looking back, First Kid was essentially her one moment, and ten-year-old me made sure to appreciate every minute of it.

The movie itself is a perfectly serviceable 90s Disney comedy. Sinbad plays Sam Simms, a Secret Service agent who gets assigned to protect Luke Davenport (Brock Pierce), the teenage son of the President of the United States. Nobody wants this job. Luke is considered a brat, a problem, a liability, and Simms is low enough on the totem pole that he can’t say no. What follows is the standard odd-couple formula where two people who can’t stand each other figure out they actually need each other, set against the backdrop of the White House and a school social life that’s complicated by the fact that Secret Service agents follow you everywhere.

Sinbad is, as usual, extremely funny here. He was always better in this kind of role than he got credit for, the loud, physical comedy punctuated by moments where he actually sells something real. His scenes with Brock Pierce have a warmth to them that the script doesn’t entirely earn on its own, but the two of them manufacture through sheer likability. Pierce plays Luke as a kid who isn’t really a brat so much as a lonely kid acting out, which is the right read on the character, and he’s sympathetic enough that you root for him without the movie having to work too hard to convince you much. It takes a minute to get to that point. In the beginning, he is an unlikeable kid.

The plot eventually kicks into gear when Luke’s mysterious online chat friend turns out to have sinister intentions, and the film shifts from gentle comedy into something with actual stakes. It doesn’t commit to being a thriller (of course, it’s a kids’ comedy) and it doesn’t need to, but the third act has enough urgency to justify the runtime and give Simms a moment to actually be a hero rather than just a babysitter.

The supporting cast does its job. Robert Guillaume is reliable as always. Timothy Busfield plays the antagonistic agent Woods with just enough petty menace to be satisfying when things turn on him, which, at the time I only knew him from Little Big League (also a favorite of mine), so this one was quite the departure from his role in that one. Zachery Ty Bryan, from Home Improvement, shows up as the school bully and is appropriately punchable (a trait he apparently didn’t grow out of).

And then there’s Erin Williby as Katie Warren, the girl Luke has a crush on and the object of considerably more attention from me than the film probably intended. She’s sweet and natural in the role, handles the teenage romance beats without making them feel awkward, and then essentially disappeared from Hollywood after this. A Young Artist Award nomination for this film, and then mostly nothing. Probably for the best, considering Hollywood is really no place for children.

First Kid isn’t a great film. But it is an enjoyable movie. The comedy lands more than it misses, the central relationship between Simms and Luke is charming, and it holds up better than a lot of the Disney live-action output from that era. It won’t knock you over with anything original, and if you came to it fresh today without nostalgia driving the experience, you’d probably clock it as pleasant and forgettable. But for those of us who grew up with it, it’s exactly what it always was: a fun afternoon movie that delivered what it promised and is worth revisiting if you haven’t seen it in awhile

First Kid gets a three out of five: SUBSTANTIAL.

If you enjoyed this one, check out my review of another mid-90s kid flick, The Indian in the Cupboard and Blank Check. You can browse the full Throwback Thursday archives by clicking here. Next week on Throwback Thursday, the Dungeon opens as I start a new, unique series on the site called Sword, Sorcery and Sin: The Never-Ending Countdown of The Cheesiest, Sleeziest Sword & Sorcery Movies. We’re kicking it off with the inaugural #1 on the rankings, Deathstalker.