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. | Willard
(2003) |
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Way back in the early 70’s a Stephen Gilbert’s novel Ratman’s Notebooks was adapted for the big screen by director Daniel Mann and became a sleeper hit on the “midnight movie” circuit leading to a sequel in 1972 by the name of Ben. WIllard is a quirky tale about when an outcaste,freak like character, picked upon by the whole nasty world, finds some (read a plethora of) true friends in the form of a thriving community of rats who inhabit his basement. Gradually the unloved, unwanted Willard trains his furry warriors to wage war against his tormentors one by one though there is a potential problem in a rather humungous rat called Ben who views himself and not Willard as the leader of the rat pack.
Rat movies have never really translated to big bucks at the Box Office though the initial Willard did relatively well due to its novel theme if not quite the excellence of the film, plus times were different. Ben, the follow up was also reasonably successful but it’s not as though these films were reaping huge amounts of money like Shark or Dinosaur or even Snake films have done over the years. Comparatively, in the Hollywood food chain, the Rat comes way down the ladder usually condemned to cheesy made for cable ventures at best and therefore for a studio to plumb for this outlandish storyline in this day and age was a fair gamble. Since Willard and Ben, not a single rat oriented movie has enjoyed a bite of success on the big screen and if it was a surprise that a film of this kind was made back in 1971, it’s even more remarkable that a major studio would consider the film worthy of a reworking. In an age when horror has infected the internet and Freddy and Jason have come to murderous blows and Alien is about to be re-released in hundreds of screens across America it seems odd that New Line should go for a very old fashioned and dare we say highly unfashionable remake. That said, who was to know that swashbucklers would be the thing in the new Millennium – maybe the world really did want and need a new Rat movie after all, or so the folks at New Line must have hoped because a sleek, new version complete with nifty state of special effects was green lit and ready to roll. When the film arrived in theatres, hardly anybody bothered to watch it and the movie sank like a dead duck (rat?) at the Box Office, vanishing from screens within days. Well, that answered the question of whether the world wanted or needed a new Rat film alright! This time around the weird Willard is played by Crispin Glover and though he does appear suitably demented, his rages of terror are never menacing and try though he does, he never manages to appear threatening or evil…just rather pathetic and silly. In the beginning Willard receives instructions from his mother to get rid of some rats she can hear in the basement. In trying to get rid of them he finds his loyalties swaying to a gallant white mouse that is stuck in one of those vile sticky mats and is desperately trying to break free. Feeling revulsion at his own trap Willard rescues the mouse and from that moment on, a special bond is struck up between the two; man and mouse. Soon Willard commands a battalion of rats and they undergo rigorous training under his command – almost like an Al-Qaeda training camp! Then the day finally arrives when Willard decides to use his friends to exact revenge on those who have caused him grief. Basically the same story as the old Willard film, though with souped-up special effects and jacked up sound. Is it effective? Well, no it isn’t. It’s a fairly tedious film that could have done with an injection of humour or gore or both – perhaps if it had been done in a slapstick style as in Peter Jackson's Dead Alive it might have worked because the way it is the film is dull and predictable (it is after all a faithful remake) and has a hard time sustaining the viewers interest until the very end – at least I felt myself nodding off on more than one occasion towards the last quarter of an hour of the film. It’s a pretty dreary, dour, humourless film that strikes one as being more pointless than anything else. It is reasonably acted especially by Lee Ermey but otherwise it will fail to satisfy the core horror audience which the film is aimed at and almost everyone else will avoid a Rat film to begin with. It’s not an incompetently put together film (by Glen Morgan of Final Destination) and the special effects are indeed impressive, just that it holds no surprises and has little freshness, style or innovation…and is desperately humourless despite Crispin Glover’s gallant attempts amidst the crass dialogues. An unmoving, boring and wholly forgettable movie – A horror movie that forgot to be scary and if it was supposed to be an emotional tour de force about “outsiders”, well, frankly, you might try looking elsewhere or even give the original Willard a go. This new Willard is a considerable disappointment even if it’s only a Rat movie!
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