I just caught this movie and had to watch it.  I remember when it came out, I was thirteen and I was interested in watching it then.  But my mom said, "Oh, it's probably too gory" so I never got to watch it... until now.

As I recall, the reviews weren't very good for this movie.

"There aren't enough scenes with the rats creating havoc!"

"It's not as good as the original"

Well, I can't judge it on the original, due to the fact I have never seen it.

However, I think this movie is really under-rated.

500 rats were trained for this movie.  Socrates and Ben are the two main rats. Crispin Glover plays Willard Stiles, a twitchy, rat-like, weak character, who has very little human contact.

Summery (small spoilers):

In the beginning of the movie, you are introduced to Willard, as he buys rat traps for the small rat infestation in the basement.  He takes care of his feeble mother who is bed-ridden and fairly neurotic.  He goes to work at "Martin / Stiles" a company that used to be co-owned by his father.  He is always late for work, and his boss "Mr. Martin" is constantly on him for it.  He yells and ridicules him at work and Willard is lonely and depressed. 

A woman who seems to feel sorry and concerned for Willard is hired as an assistant to help him with the papers that he has gotten behind in writing up. Willard seems to spend a lot of time just in a daze or something- you never see him working or spending time with his mother- he just mopes about as time passes quickly.  He moves very slowly and thinks forever about what he is going to do.

  While in bed late at night, he hears terribly frightened squeaking and he goes to investigate downstairs to the basement to discover that a white rat stuck in the sticky tape he put down to capture it in.  It struggles to run away, and Willard sympathises with it's struggle.

So, he carefully cuts the rat free from the trap, and washes him off, dubbing him with the name "Socrates".  He re-releases him back into the basement, reluctantly.  The rat returns to him and he has now made one of his first friends.  The rest of the movie plays out with his attachment to Socrates, and his mean boss who is horribly mean to him, and his crazy mother.  Then, comes the introduction of "Big Ben", the largest rat of the bunch and obviously the smartest- as he's survived the longest on his own.  Ben seems to be leading the rats against Willard's wishes, and is always trying to usurp Socrates whom Willard claims is the top rat.  Willard seems to treat Ben, much as he is treated by Mr. Martin, and Ben doesn't take a liking to that.

Without giving away too much of the rest of the plot, the best scene is when Willard confronts Mr. Martin with his army of thousands of rats after Mr. Martin takes away the only things that matter to him.

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I don't like very many movies, but this movie was really good.  It made me laugh, it made me almost cry because it was so truly sad, and it was very entertaining.

  For one, the whole time it plays out, Willard is making it out that Ben is the enemy and that he is doing all of these things against him, and suddenly you realize that maybe Willard is just crazy and none of this is really happening.  After all, he has spent all of this time training all of these rats to chew and destroy, and then he blames Ben for when they begin ravaging the kitchen.  There is no plot, his mind is making up the scenario.  Which was really very clever.  Also, each rat seems to parody his self, in each different scenario: Socrates is his weak self, trying to build himself up, not very big, small and insignificant.  Ben, is his manic crazy state that is aggresive and has been building all the anger inside from his crappy life.

Next was the directing style.  It's rare that you see a movie and the directing is actually noticeable.  Some of the camera shots are great, and really put you in the frame of mind that Willard might be in.  It shows every single little detail that he might look at, like the rat poison charts and what each one of the traps do.

Next, the humorous script.  It cracked me up sometimes.  It's definitely a dark comedy.  Lines like, "Walt, here's Mickey coming to join you" are so funny... but awfully crude as well.  I cringed at some of the parts, as some of it's horrible and you can just feel the pain of Willard's at the parts where he loses what little he had.

Crispin Glover did a fantastic job.  I never have seen one of his movies before this one.  But he did great as this character.  It wasn't over-the-top, and it was very believable.  Mr. Martin was also very good.  He had all the hilariously crude lines in the show, but they were so well delivered.

I really don't understand why people didn't like this movie.

I did.

But then, I like weird things.

And this is definitely on the odd side.  

I actually saw some parallels to the tv show LOST, which frequently likes to parody films and books.  This was definitely one of those times.  Willard is very similar to the character Daniel Faraday- both had a white rat, both are twitchy, and seem not quite normal.  Ben the rat, is very much in the same situation as Ben in LOST.   Both are placed in the "Second best" slot, and they both strive to be the best.  Both are clever and manipulative and both Ben's are jealous of what they can't have. 

I seriously need to get video editing.  I was meaning to do another fan video to post up on YouTube, but I have been LAZY at home.  blah. 

Also, I need to sew my pointe shoes because the stupid elastic isn't in the correct place or whatever.  Ugh.  I hate sewing so much.

On the plus side, I have The Mentalist and Eli Stone to watch because they were on today (I tape them).  Tomorrow I have to bring in my ol' Tutu to practice in.  Those pancake tutus actually really suck.  They stick straight out, so it's hard to manuever yourself in them-- you can't go through doors or anything.  I feel like a blimp walking around.  Sigh.

I feel like I'm coming down with something- which really sucks.  But at least I have next week off for Thanksgiving.  Now THAT'S something I can be thankful for.

I was at the bookstore, and I was reading an astrology book.  So I flipped it open to my sign, "Aries", and it had this section that said that Aries people don't catch hints.

Haha, They are so wrong.  I catch every hint thrown at me, I just choose to ignore the ones I don't like and pretend that I don't get it.

My moon is in Gemini (thus the screen name) and that sign actually describes me pretty darned well.  I am a multi-faceted personality, constantly on the go, impatient, and flippant at times-- though it gets on my nerves.  Luckily, my other signs include earthy Capricorn- which stabilizes my manic states, and Aquarius -- which I suppose is where my oddness comes from.

So, how did I get into astrology of all things? My mom is into it, via her mom.  So, it's all my grandma's fault.  I suppose I'll have to ask her why she's into it. She'll probably say it was HER mother.  Who knows.

Chinese year: Horse

Sun sign: Aries

Moon: Gemini

Rising Sign: Aquarius