MOVIE REVIEWS: “BABIES”

Babies, which opens in about 500 theaters — many of them art houses — over the weekend, is receiving mostly positive reviews from critics. “It will be hard to watch this extraordinary film and its adorable stars without a goofy smile,” writes Claudia Puig in USA Today. A.O. Scott in the New York Times concedes that “it’s hard to know just what to say about Babies” and then decides that the most apropos adjective for it would be “Awwwwww.” Betsy Sharkey in the Los Angeles Times uses the more conventional adjectives “joyous and buoyant” to describe the documentary. But Kyle Smith in the New York Post objects to what he sees as its unrelenting “cuteness.” He concludes grumpily: “Other people’s babies are boring. So is Babies.”