RUGRATS IN PARIS A film review by James Brundage Copyright 2000 filmcritic.com filmcritic.com
Well, the Rugrats are back, and, as usual, they're way too sophisticated for their audience. The Simpsons of the Nickelodeon Network has meandered its way back onto the big screen, and this time they are hitting the streets of Paris with more Freudian slips than a sexually-charged first date.
To start with, Grandpa Lou has gotten remarried (leading into, by the way, an excellent parody of The Godfather in the first scene) and all Chuckie wants is a mommy. Meanwhile, Stu Pickles gets a call from Paris demanding that he come to fix a giant mechanical Reptar (a wonderful running Godzilla/Pokemon spoof gag from the series) which he designed.
After discovering the mommy button on an airplane (the flight attendant button), Chuckie decides that Paris is the perfect place to find a new mommy. The group proceeds to EuroReptarLand, where we discover that one Coco LaBouche (Susan Sarandon) needs to become a mother so she can move ahead in the Japanese conglomerate for which she works (oh, all the feminist implications one can see in this). Manipulative as Coco is, she decides to romance Chuckie's dad via her secretary Kira's knowledge of childrearing.
>From here on in the plot flows predictably, and the movie inserts its share of both lowbrow puns and intelligent humor throughout the entire film, making for a satisfactory viewing experience... a kid's movie the rest of us can stand (or even enjoy).
Of course Rugrats in Paris is hardly exemplary. It lacks the witty parodies of the first Rugrats film, and goes for too many fart-and-diaper jokes that are strictly kids-only. The show would better serve itself to go completely the route of The Simpsons and dropping all pretense of being kiddie fare, instead using its writers' satiric wit for all it's worth. But, as the Rugrats franchise will be raking in quite a few pretty pennies, don't expect anything like that to happen anytime soon. Instead, expect that these movies will gradually get less and less intelligent, until one day Rugrats is nothing more than just another one of those dumb kid's movies you can't stand.
RATING: ***1/2
|----------------------------------|
\ ***** Perfection \
\ **** Good, memorable film \
\ *** Average, hits and misses \
\ ** Sub-par on many levels \
\ * Unquestionably awful \
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MPAA Rating: G
Director: Stig Bergqvist, Paul Demeyer Producer: Gabor Psupo, Arlene Klaspy Writer: David N. Weiss, J. David Stem, Jill Gorey, Barbara Herndon, Kate Boutlier Starring: Joe Alaskey, Christine Cavanaugh, Melanie Chartoff, Cheryl Chase, Elizabeth Daily, John Lithgow, Debbie Reynolds, Jack Riley, Susan Sarandon, Kath Soucie
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