Review of Rugrats Go Wild

Introduction

`Rugrats Go Wild` is a kind of a `2 for 1` offer from Paramount-Nickleodeon. It`s a movie that features two of Nick`s most popular cartoon series, namely Rugrats and The Wild Thornberry`s. Hot on the heels of the success of the Thornberry`s movie, and the surprising runaway box office success of the two Rugrats movies, you might be forgiven for thinking that this combination movie would offer up double the fun and double the value. But somehow the calculation doesn`t add up. By some strange twist of mathematical logic, what you actually get here is something closer to 50%.

It`s got all the right ingredients - plenty of anarchic fun, laced with toilet humour and even occasional pathos. There are plenty of `adult references` to keep parents engaged too, with referential nods to Titanic, The Posiedon Adventure and Jaws amongst the most obvious. The story sees all the Rugrats regulars take to the seas in a leaky boat in search of holiday adventure. Naturally they become shipwrecked on a `deserted` island, whose only other occupants appear to be the Thornberrys who are trying to obtain film footage of a rare leopard who, predictably, develops an appetite for Rugrats. There are one or two toe-curling songs, albeit delivered with some aplomb by Bruce Willis (as the voice of Spike, the Rugrats dog who we hear `speak` for the first time through the ears of Eliza Thornberry who has the ability to understand animals) and Chrissie Hynde (as the Leopard). We also get a rousing rendition of the Clash`s `Should I stay` as well as a version (from a dogs p.o.v) of Iggy Pop`s `Lust for Life`, so the music`s not all bad.

There are one or two moments of outstandingly imaginative animation (like the cut from a wide shot of one of the Rugrat babies preparing to swallow a caterpillar to an oesophagus-eye view of the same), though in general the animation feels like business as usual.

The dialogue is generally witty and actually carries a pretty hazy and disconnected story along quickly and painlessly, and there were some laugh aloud moments too. One such example is Bruce Willis, a surprisingly good voice-artiste, as Spike the dog complaining: "I think my smeller`s on the blink. I can`t even smell my own butt - and believe me, I`ve tried…" This is not untypical.

Video

A (predictably) flawless digital transfer, the images are crisp and colourful. The animation can be extremely impressive, albeit only occasionally, and the wildly saturated colours used (during jungle sequences for example) hold up in a way that would never have been possible pre-DVD.

Audio

You get a choice of four language soundtracks here and the audio mix is pure magic, If you want a movie with an endless stream of bangs, crashes, whoops and screams then this is for you. Anarchic animations like these are a Foley man`s dream and they`ve really gone to town on the range and creativity of the audio effects here.

Features

There was a time when you saw a movie in the way the Director and/or the Producers intended - and that was it. All the bits that hit the cutting room floor stayed there. Until the advent of DVD. Now there seems to be a consensus that more is better - quantity often reigns supreme over issues of quality. In music, now that the format will bear 78 minutes of music that`s what we often get, regardless of whether it`s any good or not. (Off on a tangent here, but what a relief that two of last years finest albums -The Strokes & The Darkness - both clocked in at under 40 minutes!) And finally to the point! What we get here are a number of deleted scenes and songs that never made the final cut. Indeed - they remain in the form they took at the point of their rejection; as very basic animatics, sometimes monochrome only, and occasionally with some of the gel layers painted in. Of course they`re very revealing in terms of how the movie was constructed, as are so many of these extras - but do we need to see how something was made in order to fully appreciate it? Of course this was pretty much a moot point in my household as the `extra features` failed to hold anyone`s attention other than my own.
There is also a little (very little) featurette featuring Bruce Willis and Chrissie Hynde in the recording studio and this is fairly engaging, though it`s all over in under five minutes. You also get about a dozen or so subtitle options.

Conclusion

For all the analysis, I watched this movie with my two daughters and they thoroughly enjoyed it. And because they did, I guess I did. I daresay they`ll be watching it again before the weeks out and so, for the record, I asked them to voice their perhaps more relevant opinions.

Chloe (11): "Really cool! Funny but scary in places too…"
Molly (8): " 10 out of 10 - brilliant!"

So that`s told me, and I guess tells you something of value too…