Rugrats Go Wild!

Nickelodeon TV’s animated gang of diapered toddlers and their self-absorbed yuppie parents get themselves marooned on a desert island, which, unbeknownst to them, is also inhabited by the Thornberrys, another family of Nickelodeon toons (a pretty crafty piece of cross-promotion, that). The title is only too accurate; the movie rips along like a gasoline fire, screeching and bellowing until it bulges at the seams, rattling off gags (and a few songs) in a caffeinated frenzy; everything in the movie is over before we can even begin to enjoy it. Rugrats Go Wild! is high-spirited and energetic, but it’s also relentless and nerve-wracking, exhausting to sit through. Tucked in among the poop and doody jokes, like tequila shots in an Easter basket, are old movie and TV in-jokes to tickle the grownups.