"Anywhere you go in this city, you're only about five feet from a rat." These reassuring words set the tone for
The Rats, a cheesy 2002 TV movie with a rather fun attitude toward its icky subject. The furry creatures are overrunning a Manhattan department store, with only store manager Mädchen Amick and exterminator Vincent Spano standing between the city and the establishment of a full-scale rodent kingdom. What takes this movie way beyond
Willard is the CGI paint box, which brings scenes--many, many scenes--of swarming rats: rats filling a children's swimming pool, rats dropping onto a subway car, rats teeming over unfortunate extras. The movie isn't top-drawer in budget or anything else, but it seems aware of the 1950s monster-movie spirit, and the rat-cam and nibbling sound effects are unleashed with glee. It might make you think twice about lifting that toilet lid.
--Robert Horton
