1997 ‘Die Story von Monty Spinnerratz’ Directed by Michael F. Huse
Monty is a young cute rat in a rat world living beneath the streeets of Manhattan. When exterminator Dollart gets a new lethal spray to kill all the rodents, Monty, his friend Isabella and Jean-Paul Canalligator have to travel to magic land to make things right.
Augsburger Puppenkiste - Die Story von Monty Spinnerratz
Germany0
USA
Germany
USA
This movie is wild. A reformed rat-killer in a disco suit kisses a rat. Beverly D'Angelo dresses in a multitude of gaudy clothes. There’s repeat stock footage of a street cleaner. The marionette puppetry is putrid. A random hip-hop version of “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” plays over the credits for God knows why. And it’s all to make the ridiculous argument that we should leave rats alone and let them run wild in the streets. But don’t be fooled; none of that insanity translates to entertainment.
BETTER ALTERNATIVES: Teacher's Pet, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Anomalisa, The Dark Crystal, The Rescuers
I thought this movie was my Mandela Effect story because I have faint memories of this tape coming out and being shown at my preschool and then seeing this exact VHS cover at the Blockbuster later that weekend. I couldn’t find any evidence of its existence until I accidentally misspelled Monty Python on Letterboxd and this popped up. I remember it being very unsettling to my four-year-old self and it still looks odd and unsettling because it’s a very American edit of a very German marionette movie.
When I saw this film being sold, I remembered seeing it as a child and enjoying it, so I figured I would watch it again. This was not a good decision. I have decided that marionettes are not meant to be in film, as this movie so clearly shows. While the story overall was pretty good, the messages felt a little overdone, and unnecessary. I mean breaking the fourth wall to tell us that love is stronger than money, not needed. The biggest problem for me was probably the medium used to animate the rats, i.e. marionettes. They are cute as smaller puppet shows, but when doing a full length movie with characters that can express no emotion, or even move their mouths, it got a little boring. I would say I'd show this to my kids, and watch it with them, but not again on my own.
