Wishes come true in Rugrats in Paris: The movie, and love makes its way into the hearts of those young, old and overseas. Chuckie Finster's (Christine Cavanaugh) dad Chas starts dating again and it's Chuckie's wish to find a new mother. When Stu Pickles (Jack Riley) is summoned to Reptarland, an amazing new amusement park in Paris, to work on his reptar invention, Tommy (Elizabeth Daily), Chuckie, Angelica (Cheryl Chase), Lil, Phil (Kath Soucie), baby Dil, Didi (Melanie Chartoff) and the whole gang tag along to the city of romance. But the rugrats' big adventure turns out to be more than glamour, fashion and smelly cheese. Chuckie learns that when it comes to princesses and potential mummies, things are not always what they seem, and for Chas, finding the right woman can be difficult in any language. As the rugrats' travels take them from the Eiffel Tower to Notre Dame and everywhere in between, the world's favourite babies learn new lessons about courage, loyalty, trust and above all, true love.
Special Agent Matti
A big step away from The rugrats movie.
The first one was all about ankle biters and their ankle biter adventures. Rugrats in Paris is about ankle biters and their groan up adventures. Now, kids have been having adult adventures since the beginning of cinema but no-one has ever advocated nappy-wearing ingénus taking on big business in a foreign country before. It's a little bit hard to accept that the various parents are so dimwitted as to let their infant children run around a foreign city without supervision.
Once you get over that you find yourself with a sequel that tries to be bigger, brighter and better than its predecessor. Of course, through the ongoing education provided by me, you will recognise this as sequelitis: someone making a second film because the first one was really good rather than because they have this great idea for a movie. People with that mindset are also prone to believe that if one thing is good then a hundred things must be better. In other walks of life they are referred to as "size queens."
Still, Rugrats in Paris will make a good baby-sitter, especially for kids who saw the first film, because their interests will have groan up at the same rate that the writers' did.
G
78 minutes (1:18 hours)
DVD rental: 5 October 2001