A Rat's Tale Movie Review 1998

"Romeo & Juliet" for rats. A regular Joe, Manhattanite Monty Mad-Rat meets Isabella Noble-Rat, the daughter of the rat President, and soon Monty is a goner for this out-of-reach rodent whose family disapproves of the common sewer creature. Adding to the intrigue, a land developer (Ostendorf) appears with a scheme to obliterate the rat population and build a parking garage. The rats band together to raise money to buy their land and prevent ratricide. Admirably lo-tech, kid pic nonetheless suffers from the cute but expressionless and very much wired marionettes playing the rats--they're no muppets--and the broadly characterized roles of the human actors (Hutton, Stiller and D'Angelo). Marionettes complements of Germany's Augsburger Puppet Theatre. Based on the book by Tor Seidler.

Distribution

Warner Home Video, Inc., 5775 Linder Canyon Rd., Westlake Village, CA 91362, URL: http://whv.warnerbros.com, Remarks: Does not handle retail queries from consumers; contact your local video distributor.

Available on VHS
Running time 90 minutes.
Originally from German.

Cast and Crew

Genres

Puppets, Nice Mice, Race Against Time, New York, New York

Screenplay

Werner Morganrath, Peter Scheerbaum

Cast

Lauren Hutton, Jerry Stiller, Beverly D'Angelo, Josef Ostendorf

Cinematography

Piotr Lenar

Director

Michael F. Huse

Music

Frederic Talgorn

Other

Dee Bradley Baker, Lynsey Bartilson, Donald Arthur, Ray Guth, Scott MacDonald