Rugrats Go Wild
PG (animated baby bottoms, singing dogs)
Opening in area theaters tomorrow
Three reels out of four
I have a confession: I was not a huge fan of early computer animation.
Sure, they were breaking new ground, but the stuff was a tad too antiseptic for me. It was like listening to a technically amazing jazz guitarist who’s never felt the sting of unrequited love. Something was missing.
Now I wait with bated breath every time Pixar puts out another movie. Finding Nemo was yet another example of the company’s wizardry. DreamWorks also contributed to the genre with Shrek.
Rugrats Go Wild, the latest animated feature to hit theaters, will not make anybody forget the golden days of Disney, but it is an entertaining reminder that computers haven’t taken over the world. Yet.
This time around the Rugrats gang, from the vastly popular Nickelodeon series, is headed for a luxurious ocean cruise. When the crew misses its ship, they hop a boat ride with Stu, the one parent who didn’t opt for the cruise. Unfortunately, they end up shipwrecked on a desert island. The adults go off looking for food and a way to get off the island, and the kids get lost in the jungle.
Meanwhile, famous TV naturalist Nigel Thornberry — also of Nickelodeon fame — is on another part of the island with his wife and kids, looking for the elusive spotted leopard. After a series of hair-raising adventures, the Rugrats gang gets off the island and the Thornberrys reconnect with their kids.
Most of the movie has a feel of a feature-film-length sitcom and that’s not always a bad thing.
As with many live-action movies, Rugrats Go Wild requires a certain suspension of disbelief. If kids that age actually got lost on a desert island, it could be a recipe for tragedy. But this is a cartoon, and if you buy the premise you buy the movie.
Whether you like the animation has a whole lot to do with whether you like the whole "Rugrats" look. With those enlarged heads, the babies appear to be clowns-in-training sans makeup. But a criticism of the drawing style is irrelevant. The animation does justice to the characters.
And, of course, no animated feature is complete without the requisite in-jokes for Mom and Dad. The ones I caught made irreverent pop-culture references and were obviously written with a healthy sense of whimsy.
Another staple of animated features are the musical numbers. The songs are basically a pleasant sampling of the various pop styles of the day. There’s nothing Oscar-caliber here, but not too much that is cringe-worthy either. However, the off-key yowling of Bruce Willis (the voice of Spike the Dog) actually works in Big Bad Cat, a duet with Chrissie Hynde.
Deliver Us From Eva
R
Available Tuesday
The latest in a slew of oversexed romantic comedies aimed at a young urban audience, Deliver Us From Eva delivers the requisite laughs, but is surprisingly sweet at its core. Gabrielle Union plays Eve Dandridge, a no-nonsense health inspector who watches over her three sisters like a mother hen on steroids. This dismays their men so much that they enlist ladies’ man Ray (LL Cool J) to break Eva’s heart to bring her down a notch. The plan backfires when Ray falls in love with Eva. Union delivers a nuanced, funny performance as the sister-in-law from hell. LL Cool J is amazingly vulnerable as the soon-to-be-reformed playah Ray.
