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Paramount Studios presents

Rugrats: The Movie (1998)

"Hold on to your Diapees babies, we're going in."- Tommy Pickles (Elizabeth Daily)

Stars: Elizabeth Daily
Other Stars: Christine Cavanaugh, Kath Soucie, Melanie Chartoff
Director: Norton Virgien, Igor Kovalyov

MPAA Rating: GRun Time: 1h:19m:00s
Release Date: 2000-07-11
Genre: animation

Style
Grade
Substance
Grade
Image Transfer
Grade
Audio Transfer
Grade
Extras
Grade
C B-B-A D-

 

DVD Review

Ok, I have a confession, I actually look forward to taking in movies with my five-year-old daughter. I know, I know, but I can't help it. Anyway, we actually saw Rugrats: The Movie in the theaters and couldn't wait until it came out on DVD.

Rugrats: The Movie is about the adventures of Nickelodeon's cartoon bunch, the Rugrats. In the movie, the children Tommy, Chuckie, Phil, Lil and the latest Pickles addition Dillon (Dill), are accidentally lost and try to get back to their house to enjoy "fried bologna sandwiches..."

As a regular viewer of the Nickelodeon Rugrats television show, the movie keeps right in line with the antics that these kids are most notorious for—getting into trouble! The movie starts off with a Raider's Of The Lost Ark tribute with Tommy as the famed 'Oki-Doki Jones'. The action and adventure starts off hilarious and continues with the laughs until the last credit is rolled (the antics even continue after the credits have stopped, for those of you who view a movie until the very end!) My daughter says, " Rugrats: The Movie is really funny!"

From the jumbled up one-liners, "You babies don't know anything about the facts of LICE!" to the crazy antics, spoofs (there's a take on Disney's Bambi that's really funny), mischief, mayhem and some original songs, this movie is a non-stop barrel of laughs. My daughter and I highly recommend this one for your kid's collection.

Rating for Style: C
Rating for Substance: B-

 

Image Transfer


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 One Two
Aspect Ratio1.85:1 - Widescreen 1.33:1 - Full Frame
Original Aspect Ratioyes no
Anamorphicno no


Image Transfer Review: I'd have to say that we were impressed with the color rendition on this DVD. Colors are very crisp without being overly saturated, with no evidence of color bleeding in the picture. I would have to add that the image would be even more impressive if given an anamorphic transfer. Since Paramount opted not to give this DVD and anamorphic transfer, the clarity of the image itself suffers a little. I preferred to watch the movie in 'zoom' mode (this stretches the image both horizontally and vertically) and in doing so I noticed some pixelization of the image in certain places.

There aren't many contrasting scenes but black level is good for what's there. Overall, the image is good but could have been so much better if it had been given an anamorphic transfer.

Image Transfer Grade: B-
 

Audio Transfer

 LanguageRemote Access
DS 2.0English, Frenchyes
Dolby Digital
5.1
Englishyes


Audio Transfer Review: The audio track on this DVD is what really shines. A very good, clean 5.1 mix with active rear and sub effects. Dialog is very clear and concise, which makes it easier to handle listening to these sometimes high-pitched, if not annoying kids voices. On the musical scenes, percussion, horns and keyboard sounds fill the room from every angle with a very spacious sound field. The LFE (.1) track has its fills of shakes and rumbles—check out the scene where the circus monkeys steal and then wreck the circus train, very nice! This is an excellent 5.1 mix for any movie and does tremendous wonders for the enjoyment fo this movie.

Audio Transfer Grade:

Disc Extras

Static menu
Scene Access with 19 cues and remote access
Subtitles/Captions in English with remote access
1 Original Trailer(s)
Packaging: Amaray
Picture Disc
1 Disc
1-Sided disc(s)
Layers: dual
Layers Switch: N/A

Extra Extras:
  1. Bonus Cat-Dog short ; Winslow's Documentary
  2. Theatrical trailer
Extras Review: Surprisingly, most studios don't realize the potential of including interactive extra material on children's DVDs. I can't tell you how many times I've played the trivia game with my daughter on Disney's Tarzan DVD (although we've gotten all the answers memorized by now!)

This disc definitely disappoints in the extras area as there are only two. The first is a little short entitled Winslow's Documentary (Winslow is another of Nickelodeon's characters), in which Winslow plays host to a few Cat-Dog (yet another Nickelodeon character) clips, a la Fred Brown on America's Funniest Home Videos. The shorts aren't particularly the funniest of the Cat-Dog series and they don't really follow any type of theme or format.

The only other extra is the standard fare movie trailer for Rugrats: The Movie. Nothing too exciting happening here, it seems like Paramount just threw some extras onto this DVD to prevent it from being a bare-bones release. A huge letdown.

Extras Grade: D-
 

Final Comments

My daughter and I thoroughly enjoyed watching Rugrats: The Movie on DVD. With animation good enough to keep your eyes happy and a story funny enough to keep you laughing, you can't help but to fall for the Rugrats.

Troy Lambert 2000-08-02