After seeing the utterly horrid "The Rugrats Movie", I wasn't expecting anything better than mediocrity from this one. Boy was I pleasantly surprised.
The plot concerns Stu Pickles going to Paris to fix a Reptar Robot he gave to a French theme park ran by Coco LaBouche (Susan Sarandon). Well . .. I don't wanna spend too much time on the plot, so . ..
Hardly perfect, but it's above-average, compared to most Nick films. Certainly way better than the original.
The animation isn't great (in my opinion), but numerous jokes and movie references (much more intelligent than the three year old-directed humor of the original) work extremely well. The continual parodies of "The Godfather" are hilarious and shockingly well-done. (And Chuckie does kinda sound like Vito Corleone . . . scary.) There are references to "King Kong", "Lady and the Tramp", the "Godzilla" movies, "The Hunchback of Notre Dame", "Enter the Dragon", and surely more. This film is, as one reviewer of "The Rugrats" series put it, on the fine line between children's entertainment and adult satire.
There are some relatively emotional moments, too: the opening wedding scene is surprisingly effective (and it takes a lot to get me crying, believe me), the wedding of Kira and Chas, Chuckie screaming "No!" (his first word intelligible to the adults) as Coco and Chas are about to get married . . . the only drawbacks are the toilet/gross-out humor, which is unfortunately abundant here (esp. the scene with the babies playing in the bathroom of a plane [I don't get it, either] and "Ooey Gooey World"), and the fact that the new characters, Kira and Kimi (Chuckie/Chaz's wife/mom/daughter/sister) would destroy what little enjoyability the "Rugrats" series had left. But, aside from that and the (enjoyable) implausiblity (I'd rather see the 'rats riding the Reptar robot around Paris than Spike fight that stupid wolf on a bridge), this is a very good family film.
Seven stars.
The plot concerns Stu Pickles going to Paris to fix a Reptar Robot he gave to a French theme park ran by Coco LaBouche (Susan Sarandon). Well . .. I don't wanna spend too much time on the plot, so . ..
Hardly perfect, but it's above-average, compared to most Nick films. Certainly way better than the original.
The animation isn't great (in my opinion), but numerous jokes and movie references (much more intelligent than the three year old-directed humor of the original) work extremely well. The continual parodies of "The Godfather" are hilarious and shockingly well-done. (And Chuckie does kinda sound like Vito Corleone . . . scary.) There are references to "King Kong", "Lady and the Tramp", the "Godzilla" movies, "The Hunchback of Notre Dame", "Enter the Dragon", and surely more. This film is, as one reviewer of "The Rugrats" series put it, on the fine line between children's entertainment and adult satire.
There are some relatively emotional moments, too: the opening wedding scene is surprisingly effective (and it takes a lot to get me crying, believe me), the wedding of Kira and Chas, Chuckie screaming "No!" (his first word intelligible to the adults) as Coco and Chas are about to get married . . . the only drawbacks are the toilet/gross-out humor, which is unfortunately abundant here (esp. the scene with the babies playing in the bathroom of a plane [I don't get it, either] and "Ooey Gooey World"), and the fact that the new characters, Kira and Kimi (Chuckie/Chaz's wife/mom/daughter/sister) would destroy what little enjoyability the "Rugrats" series had left. But, aside from that and the (enjoyable) implausiblity (I'd rather see the 'rats riding the Reptar robot around Paris than Spike fight that stupid wolf on a bridge), this is a very good family film.
Seven stars.