Movie Review: The Rugrats Movie (1998) seen on videocassette

Comedy: some scenes may not be suitable for young children, mild violence and mature themes throughout

The movie follows the beloved characters, “The Rugrats,” in their first film which sees Tommy, Chuckie, Phil, Lil, and Angelica attempt to return Tommy’s newborn baby brother Dylan, (who is referred to as Dill throughout the film,) to the hospital after Angelica warns Tommy that his parents will pay all of the attention to Dill once he is born.

The movie opens with an imagination sequence where Tommy is pretending to be Indiana Jones, (in a possible parody of the film, although as seen through the eyes of toddlers,) which ends with Stu giving Tommy his first responsibility, which is a compass. In the imagination sequence, Tommy is seen using the compass to guide himself out of trouble while portraying Indiana Jones.

Meanwhile, Angelica is up to her shenanigans again as she convinces Tommy that once his newborn baby Dylan is born, his parents will forget all about him and mocks him by saying that his parents will look at each other and ask who the bald kid is in the house. This is done despite Tommy’s objections to what she says as he assures her his parents won’t forget about him.

Upon Dylan’s birth, he is introduced to Tommy who grabs his nose and hurts him unintentionally. Back at the house, Tommy realizes that Angelica’s prediction may be true as Stu, Didi and Grandpa Lou are shown to spend more time with Dylan as opposed to Tommy while Tommy is given minimal attention. One afternoon while Grandpa Lou is sleeping while he is babysitting the kids, they decide to return Dill to the hospital so that things will go back to normal. They stow away in Tommy’s Reptar car to try and find the hospital.

As Grandpa Lou wakes up, he realizes the children are missing and immediately informs Stu who confronts him for falling asleep when he’s supposed to be watching them while driving around to look for them. Unfortunately for Stu, the children are seen in the back of a moving van as the back door swings open. This however is not seen by either Stu or Lou as they are distracted by the argument.

Stu’s brother Drew, (who is Angelica’s uncle,) is not very fond of his brother as his inventions have caused him some sort of harm throughout the years. Midway through the film, as the children’s disappearance has made it to the local news, Drew, (who is unaware of what had happened up to this point,) is asked the question by a news reporter of how it feels to know Stu lost Angelica. He then turned red as he jumped on Stu in anger and began to choke him.

Meanwhile, Tommy and the gang are still lost in the woods as Tommy has tried numerous times to maintain composure with Dylan amidst the others’ realizing that Tommy may be left behind by his parents. After Dylan drinks all of the milk in the last bottle they have to share, Tommy snaps and says he tried to convince them that Dylan was good and they they were wrong about what they said about him earlier. He then says he know longer wants his responsibility anymore and in the process throws the compass out of anger and grabs a jar of mashed up bananas. He says he will pour it on him and turn him into a monkey, (as he is a baby and doesn’t understand that this isn’t how it works.) He angrily says that Dylan can have a monkey mommy, a monkey daddy, and a monkey brother while saying that everything will be back to normal once he empties the jar on him. As he is about to pour the jar on Dylan, a flash of lightning can be seen where Tommy, realizing that he scared Dylan, decides not to pour the bananas on Dylan and apologizes.

The end of the movie sees the gang being reunited with their parents as they are once again a happy family. Stu and Drew also reconcile after Drew finds Angelica.

Having said this, it’s another case of me not remembering exactly how the parents find the children, hence the rushed ending again. As I have only seen this movie once since it’s release, I couldn’t keep track of the events that lead up to the ending. However, I do remember that at the end, the gang is happily reunited with their respective parents.

I started watching the Rugrats tv show as a young child who was approaching my preteen years, (when I was about 9 to 11 years old.) I always found that Tommy had the worst temper of them all and I had to cover my ears when he would cry. He also had the worst voice of all the characters and I think he was a bit of a brat in this film towards the end as he made it his intention to harm Dylan, (although in the way a baby would torture his brother so there was no killing, blood violence, etc.) However, Tommy does act very cruel to his brother and I will never treat my baby nephew like that. It took him until the end of the film to realize that what he was doing was bad.

Nobody is a bigger brat in this movie than Angelica as she always seems to stir the pot when the babies are excited about something and in the process make them not want to do it and actually I believe that the way Tommy acted in this film was a result of Angelica being a brat as he was shown to be excited at the prospect of having a baby brother before Angelica started acting out the way she did.

My favourite character in this movie is Chuckie. Though he was not the main focus of this film, he had a big part in this movie’s sequel, (which will be the topic of my next review.) To me, he is the calmest of all the Rugrats characters.

The movie also shows signs of typical sibling rivalry who vie for the attention of their parents when the first born child, (in this case, Tommy,) felt like he had to compete with his baby brother for the same amount of attention from Stu and Didi. Another thing I notice is that it proves the point which states that while brothers can fight tooth and nail sometimes, when one brother needs the other, they become close again as family is the most important thing.

All in all, it was a very good movie and I would recommend it.

Movie rating: 8 out of 10