I saw this film with my daughter (6 years old) and her friend (7), none of whom are Rugrats fans, mostly because they consider the Rugrat's humor to be too immature and inappropriate. My daughter and I did, however, mostly enjoy last year's The Wild Thornberrys Movie.
The plot is a literal and figurative shipwreck. The Rugrats and their parents end up on an uninhabited island somewhere in the Pacific, on which the Thornberrys happen to be. Various groups and individuals splinter off in search of others. By the time Nigel Thornberry gets knocked on the head and reverts to the mental age of a 3 year-old, I had lost track of who was looking for whom and why. How a kid is supposed to follow all these machinations is beyond me.
The sheer number of characters and the randomness with which they run into each other prevent any sort of character depth from being explored. For example, in The Wild Thornberrys Movie, considerable attention was given to Darwin the monkey, who is one of the more interesting characters in this entire assembly (Darwin is smart and makes very insightful observations of human behavior, but he can only communicate with one person, Eliza - to everyone else, he is a dumb monkey). However, here he has what could be characterized as a cameo appearance at best. So, unless you are already familiar with all the characters, and don't expect much in terms of character development, you'll be disappointed.
I think there was a moral to the story (something about leadership and redemption), but I was nodding off by the end of the movie, having lost track of the plot. The audience I saw the film with was mostly subdued, with only a few audible laughs. My daughter and her friend said they liked the movie, but they like every movie I take them to, as long as I buy them popcorn. They did not talk about the movie at all the rest of the weekend. On the way home, we listened to the Lilo & Stitch soundtrack, which has much better songs than the few musical numbers in this movie.
I'm not giving this movie the worst rating, because it might be enjoyable for a few Rugrat fans. And the Rugrats' potty humor is not as bad as it could have been, although there are diaper jokes, bird droppings, and Spike the dog raises his leg a few times.
The plot is a literal and figurative shipwreck. The Rugrats and their parents end up on an uninhabited island somewhere in the Pacific, on which the Thornberrys happen to be. Various groups and individuals splinter off in search of others. By the time Nigel Thornberry gets knocked on the head and reverts to the mental age of a 3 year-old, I had lost track of who was looking for whom and why. How a kid is supposed to follow all these machinations is beyond me.
The sheer number of characters and the randomness with which they run into each other prevent any sort of character depth from being explored. For example, in The Wild Thornberrys Movie, considerable attention was given to Darwin the monkey, who is one of the more interesting characters in this entire assembly (Darwin is smart and makes very insightful observations of human behavior, but he can only communicate with one person, Eliza - to everyone else, he is a dumb monkey). However, here he has what could be characterized as a cameo appearance at best. So, unless you are already familiar with all the characters, and don't expect much in terms of character development, you'll be disappointed.
I think there was a moral to the story (something about leadership and redemption), but I was nodding off by the end of the movie, having lost track of the plot. The audience I saw the film with was mostly subdued, with only a few audible laughs. My daughter and her friend said they liked the movie, but they like every movie I take them to, as long as I buy them popcorn. They did not talk about the movie at all the rest of the weekend. On the way home, we listened to the Lilo & Stitch soundtrack, which has much better songs than the few musical numbers in this movie.
I'm not giving this movie the worst rating, because it might be enjoyable for a few Rugrat fans. And the Rugrats' potty humor is not as bad as it could have been, although there are diaper jokes, bird droppings, and Spike the dog raises his leg a few times.