4/10
Peter Weller is outsmarted by a rat
25 February 2009
Warning: Spoilers
You know that one guy who'd do anything to get you fired, destroy your house, alienate you from your friends and family, chew through your surge protector? You know, the usual. Well, imagine if that guy was a poodle-sized sewer rat.

I wondered going into this movie why Peter Weller would agree to star in what is essentially the rat-equivalent of Jaws: The Revenge. I got my answer about twenty seconds into the film, where it opens on a shot of Shannon Tweed, playing Weller's wife here, showering. Umm, okay.

She leaves, along with Weller's extremely dimwitted kid to stay at a hotel (only to pop up later in the movie scantily-clad back in her hotel or in a dream sequence in order to meet some strange 80s boob quota I suppose).

Weller is doing fine by himself, (staying behind to finish some work), until the dishwasher overflows, eventually upsetting a rat who decides to move into his apartment. Its hard to gauge just how big this thing is supposed to be until it decides to crawl up under the covers in Weller's bed later, apparently he's the size of a tomcat.

Weller does his best to get rid of the rat, upgrading from normal rat traps to (what are basically) miniature bear traps. When the medieval rat traps don't work or come back gnawed on he decides to get a cat, which also comes back gnawed on (or replaced with a cheap stuffed animal that resembles his cat). When he decides to ignore the rat he chews on on his surge protector, fuse box, and therein cutting off the power.

Weller runs around the house, bashing holes into walls in search of the rat, is plagued by nightmares of birthday parties where the giant rat jumps out of a sheet cake (?), and where his dimwitted kid ends up mixing in various rat poisons in with his cereal. The finale brought to mind Arachnophobia as it ended in a dank basement; the film ending maybe twelve seconds after the rat's been dispatched as Weller brushes himself off as if the last two hours hadn't just happened just in time to greet his wife and kid at the front door. I'm sure they won't notice the completely demolished apartment.
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