Our children received this as a Christmas present and since that time have watched this 4 or 5 times (which in the Wagar house, is a lot). 

There are very few movies that keep all of our kids engaged throughout the one and half our duration, but this one does exactly that.  From C, age 3 to B, age 5 and even D, age 6, it was all eyes on the movie (which isn’t necessarily something we like, but that’s for another blog entry in a different section of this site)  …Back to the movie….

For those who have not seen the movie (very few I suspect), it’s a story about a rat who loves to cook and how he helps a kid (who later finds out is the son of a famous chef but cannot cook to save himself).  The kid works at a once flourishing restaurant which is now struggling and together he and the rat attempt to revive the status of the restaurant… Are they able to?  You’ll need to find this out for yourself.

This movie kept all of our family’s attention with its fast paced family friendly story.

Wagar Family Recommendation = YES

 

This 2004 remake of the original is absolutely hilarious.  The kids were laughing through most of the movie but the two parts that they enjoyed the most were:

In the beginning of the movie when Mark can’t find his frog so he is looking all over for it.  Then just as everyone sits at the table and they pray over their breakfast, Mark spots the frog on top of the light fixture which hangs over the table.  As Mark attempts to catch his frog (Beans) with a net, Beans jumps onto the table and food goes everywhere.  Needless to say D and B were laughing so hard they almost had tears in their eyes. 

The second most enjoyed part, which is actually a bit gross, is when the Dad is home alone with all the kids and is struggling to keep control of the house.  During this part he asks one of his daughters to clean out the dishwasher and as she does she finds that somehow a jockstrap cup was placed in the dishwasher.  Not wanting to touch it, she quickly throws it across the room and it lands in the pot of spaghetti sauce, from which her Dad grabs it and takes it to the sink to wash it off.  Meanwhile one of the boys comes down the stairs and sees the cup covered in sauce and asks if that is Blood.  Apparently he doesn’t like the sight of blood and he throws up on the floor.  Now that’s pretty funny on it’s own, but then after he leaves and prior to anyone cleaning it up, another brother comes out slips on the puke and falls into it, and yes you guessed it, then he throws up…..  By this point both B and D and even C were laughing uncontrollably, but that’s not all…  

To bring this movie into reality, just after the last scene mentioned (Throwing up scene), W gagged on his food and started to throw up in his highchair, then B, in an attempt to get away from the puke stood up and knocked over his bowl of food.  After settling down a bit B decided to set back down and when he did he knocked over his bowl of popcorn….CRAZY just like the movie…..We all had a GREAT laugh …

Overall it is a GREAT movie, but please do note that there are a couple of inappropriate kissing scenes and those where  a boyfriend and girlfriend are lying in bed together  (these were the times that we turned off the monitor to the computer to ensure the younger viewing audience was not exposed to anything that they didn’t need to be exposed to.



Wagar Family Recommendation = YES