LET'S ALL GO OUI OUI

When the last frontier has been reached, when a man has done everything he has to do, when American legends find their horizons shrinking, where is the place they always go? Where is it that there is always glamour, always excitement? Where does the music always play and the wine always flow…? Where else but Paris? Hemingway went there, discovering absinthe and a whole new way of looking at things (then he went to Spain, but that’s another story…). Charles Lindbergh went to Paris the hard way, flying solo via Iceland and Ireland, and ushered in the modern era by doing so.

On the silver screen, the tradition likewise lived on. Gene Kelly became An American in Paris, discovering love and Leslie Caron in the process. Even the Griswolds, barred from every motel in the western United States, started their second cinematic National Lampoon Vacation in Paris - an encounter that left both sides battered but unbowed, with no shred of dignity still intact.

So, when the potato chips were down, where else but Paris would Tommy, Chuckie, Angelica, Phil and Lil head off after surviving the birth of baby Dil and all the attendant adventures of their 1998 movie debut? And, like all the Americans legends that went before them, what would they find there but love, duplicity… and a lot of smelly cheese? “This is a motion picture in the true sense of the word,” enthuses Paul Demeyer, one of the two directors of Rugrats in Paris - The Movie. “The story line is very poignant, and Paris provides a dramatic backdrop that we accent with incredible action. It’s very exciting to work on a project that you know kids and adults will see and appreciate. And we owe it to the Rugrats fans to give them a great movie.”

“We’ve had two great years developing this story and seeing it come alive on the big screen,” says his co-director, Stig Bergqvist. “Our biggest challenge was creating an intelligent and emotionally strong film that’s entertaining for the whole family.”

This is what they came up with. Tommy’s dad Stu, who has spent the nine years since Rugrats first hit US television inventing things that generally didn’t work and that no one seemed to want even when they did, finally hits paydirt with his new Reptar invention. Better still, Stu is summoned to Paris to help revamp that European outpost of theme-park heaven, EuroReptarland. And, in a moment of parental generosity (not to say madness), he elects to take family and friends along with him.

And so it is that the Rugrats discover the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame de Paris and a new two-year-old razmoket - which, gentle reader, is what the French call a ‘rugrat’ - named Kimi Watanabe. If her name sounds strange for a French bébé, that’s because Kimi is Japanese and lives with her mother, Kira, who is secretary to Coco La Bouche, manager of EuroReptarland.

All is not what it seems in this Parisian dream world, however. Coco La Bouche may have a very pretty name, but Coco herself is not a very nice person. In fact, she is self-centred, conniving and, worst of all, hates children. Even rugrats (or razmokets). Together with her elegant henchman, Jean-Claude (yes, that’s right, he’s French, too), Coco is scheming to gain complete control of EuroReptarland and is not about to let anyone, least of all an American inventor and his accompanying band of brats, get in her way.

Since Coco is voiced in the movie by Oscar-winner Susan Sarandon, with John Lithgow lending his pipes to her sidekick Jean-Claude, they are obviously not a team to be tangled with.

“As Coco,” says Sarandon, “I’m providing the personality for someone the audience will be rooting against, which is a thrill for me and my kids: they are excited that their mom finally gets to play a ‘meany’. Coco has all the makings of a classic Hollywood villain: she’s smart, yet sinister, devilish and witty in her own kind of way. The characters John and I voice have a wonderfully dysfunctional camaraderie that plays into the spirit of the film and is something kids and parents will love.”