RUGRATS GO WILD

RATING:

Starring the voices of: Michael Bell, Jodi Carlisle, Nancy Cartwright, Lacey Chabert, Melanie Chartoff, Cheryl Chase, Tim Curry, Elizabeth Daily, Flea, Danielle Harris, Tom Kane, Julia Kato, LL Cool J, and Bruce Willis. Written by Kate Boutilier Directed by John Eng, and Norton Virgien

Rated PG for mild crude humor.

The good folks at Nickelodeon were very late to the CGI game when they came out with Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius, but at least they tried to do something different than bland, 2D animation. If not for Lilo & Stitch, the last few years have not been kind to the old technique of ink & pencil.

Now comes the latest offering from Nickelodeon, which unfortunately is another Rugrats movie. And just months after the Wild Thornberrys Movie, we have a crossover, pitting the casts of both shows together for one very uninteresting cartoon flick. It might sound a little overused by now, but Nickelodeon and Paramount should perhaps look into more computer animation instead of cutting together a short film that was better off on television.

But what makes Rugrats Go Wild! somewhat tolerable is the ability of the Rugrats to poke fun at popular culture, although a joke aimed at the movie Titanic is about six years old, by now. However, a parody on the Perfect Storm was mildly amusing. Unfortunately, the jokes don't keep on coming, and there's nothing new that you can see on either television show. Whether it's jokes about taking baths and diapers (the usual Rugrats humor) or the family problems of the Thornberry family, it's all been done before in the previous two movies.

There is something new, though, in the voice of Bruce Willis as Spike the Dog. Since Willis fancies himself a singer, we get a song-and-dance number that is slightly better than the Jungle Book 2, when Baloo sang Bare Necessities about four times in the span of seventy minutes. Rugrats Go Wild! takes a similar approach, and fills up extra time with songs that I haven't heard in a cartoon since, well, the Jungle Book 2. But even the likes of Finding Nemo do not resort to this cheap attempt at stretching things out. Maybe we'll eventually get more cartoons without songs peppered in.

With the current Finding Nemo and even the past favorites like Ice Age finding a way to entertain children and adults at the same time, I think it's about time the Rugrats/Wild Thornberry movies try to find a way to fill the void between kids being entertained and adults wanting to run out the theatre screaming "No more stupid kiddie cartoons!"

On a side note, I wanted to mention that I went to see this movie at the Edwards Ontario 22 in Ontario, California, not the theatre I work at. What makes this unique in some aspects is that I experienced a barrage of ads for a full twenty minutes. Now, these were not ads and trailers together, but just commercials, including one that was a "mini-drama" from TNT, starring Vinnie Jones and two unknowns. I guess since I'm not quite sure what to make of it all, I will say that, bottom line, all these ads really need to stop. Does it occur to the movie theatre managers that this is actually making the audience more uneasy before the film starts? I guess not. But one day, when we have thirty minutes of commercials, something truly horrible will occur, around the same time Star Wars: Episode 2 comes out, I'm guessing.

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