Critics panned “Baby Geniuses,” about supersmart toddlers communicating in their own language, for an over-the-top script and awkward computer-generated special effects. (The Fitzgeralds took turns playing twins.) One scene appeared to feature Gerry in a white disco suit dancing like Tony Manero, John Travolta’s character in “Saturday Night Fever.” A stunt double did the dancing, with Gerry’s head superimposed in postproduction.

In The New York Times, Janet Maslin began her review of the movie with this: “One way to get through ‘Baby Geniuses’ is to think about whether it really is the worst movie you’ve ever seen. Probably not, but pretty darn close.” Roger Ebert called it one of the worst movies of 1999.

When “Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2” wrapped, so did the Fitzgeralds’ big-screen careers.

“They did those two movies, and in between they were typical little boys,” their mother, Janet Fitzgerald, said in a telephone interview from Port Alberni. “Their love was hockey from the day they put skates on when they were like 5 years old. Hockey was their passion. Acting was definitely not their passion.”

Although undersize — Leo is 5 feet 9 inches, Gerry 5-8 and Myles 5-7 — the Fitzgeralds formed such a prolific forward line through junior hockey that they were twice traded as a unit. Their wish to attend college together brought them to Bemidji State, a Division I program in the north woods of Minnesota that made an unexpected run to the Frozen Four in 2009.