It's every parent's nightmare. Your child kidnaps your newborn and disappears into the woods on a stormy night with his friends. Then the media descends on your home, anxious for all the details. That situation is played for laughs in "The Rugrats Movie," and while it might also be a nightmare of many parents to have to pay to see Tommy, Chuckie and Angelica on the big screen, "Rugrats" has more than enough hijinks and gross-out humor to keep the under-10 crowd in hysterics for 90 minutes. Older viewers might catch themselves chuckling as well, especially when Tommy's pregnant mom insists on checking into the Lipschitz Maternity Arts Center -- which promises it's "state-of-the-art in primitive birth alternatives" -- or when an obnoxious tabloid reporter grills grieving parents with questions like "Is it true a dingo ate your baby?". Certainly the kids won't pick up on how alternative-rock pioneers like Patti Smith, Laurie Anderson and Beck provide the vocals for a nursery full of complaining babies, or catch the easily recognizable tones of Whoopi Goldberg and David Spade as a pair of forest rangers who assist in rescuing the Rugrats from the wilderness. That's not to say that all of "Rugrats" is sophisticated and in-jokey. Many of the jokes are built around "chocolate pants" (think diapers) and bodily functions, the kind of lightly raunchy material that's, in Rugrat parlance, "more fun than picking noses" to those whose ages are still in the single digits. But, to balance things out slightly, "Rugrats" does offer a gently delivered message about how older siblings need to overcome feelings of jealousy and take part in raising a new baby. In this case, Tommy feels he's lost his place in the Pickles family after the arrival of little brother Dylan, who seems to exist solely to smack Tommy around and weep rivers of tears. The only disappointment the target audience for "Rugrats" is likely to feel comes from the movie's underemployment of bratty cousin Angelica, who is kept out of the action for most of the movie. The feature is preceded by a raucous "Catdog" short, in which the half-feline/half-canine manages to cause citywide destruction and an airplane crash while trying to win a call-in radio contest. Its relentless comic violence and hyperactivity would have made maverick "Golden Age" animator Tex Avery proud. James Sanford
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