“They’ll do anything I tell them.”

Justin’s rating: See, this would have been so much better if the rats sang like the cockroaches in Joe’s Apartment

Justin’s review: According to the latest polls, there are still a handful of poor unfortunate souls that have a complex about seeing large quantities of live rats roaming around. Shocking, in this day and age of temperance and equality, but they do exist.

If you happen to be one of these statistical anomalies, then Willard, a movie about rats and the man who loves them, is not for you. Which is a shame for the filmmakers, because they’re counting on scaring someone with these flea-ridden land-piranhas. The attempted horror of the movie begins and ends with the rat mob, so either you’re terrified of rats (and thus won’t see this movie) or it doesn’t bother you so much (and the horror is downgraded to a light tropical breeze of unsettledness).

But you’d be missing out on seeing Crispin Glover taking the rare center stage in a film. While he’s best known for his brilliant turn as geek George McFly in the first Back to the Future, he hasn’t quite settled into a normal life of super-stardom since then. Among his atypical career choices is pennint the book “Rat Catcher” in the late ’80s. Is it fate or mere coincidence that he’s returned to the promised land of rodents in this movie?

With eccentric expressions and the stare of a man who’s been to hell and back (while stopping on the way for an Egg McMuffin), Glover makes Psycho’s Anthony Perkins seem like, well, such a momma’s boy.

As the title character, Willard is a man under siege by oppressive forces surrounding him. His sickly mother is a caricature of a medieval hag, crowing from her bedroom to pester her grown son. His boss, eyebrow-happy R. Lee Ermey (Full Metal Jacket), won’t rest until he’s made Willard’s life a living hell. And Willard himself has absolutely no backbone.

Nothing happens for long stretches, as the movie goes back and forth between showcasing some delightfully Addams Family-style choreography and throwing as many squirming vermin on the screen as the budget properly allows.

Like the pied piper before him, Willard eventually becomes the Rat King, ordering the furry ones to do his bidding. While you may be expecting something more out of the revenge story element — Willard using his rat army to strike back at the forces against him — that particular element is flat and uninteresting compared with the two lead rats themselves.

Socrates, Willard’s favorite and most brilliant rat, and Big Ben, a huge rat the size of a kitten, who perform a tension-filled power struggle for Willard’s affection and resources. Out of all of the things in the movie that were supposed to give me the willies, only Big Ben’s bulldog stare did the trick. There’s one whiskery face I could do without seeing on my bed in the morning.

On occasion, bursts of comedy (black as the rat’s eyes themselves) gave me a few laughs. When Willard reluctantly accepts the gift of a housecat, the poor feline enters a world of sheer Cat Hell where the food chain reverses itself.

While I desperately wanted to endorse this underrat of a flick, in all good conscience I must warn the bulk of you away. It’s a tad to slow and a shade too unlikable to be anything other than a hall of curiosities to the rare visitor.

Kyle’s rating: This is more like the origin story for a Batman villain than anything else

Kyle’s review: Let me start off by saying that Willard is worth seeing, because 1) it makes for a good conversation piece among the normal and twisted alike and 2) Crispin Glover gives an incredible performance as the alienated and writhing-in-agony-and-anger-just-below-the-surface titular character.

But as a film in whole, Willard isn’t all that and a bag of chips that a rat could easily gnaw its way into. Which is probably why, by the time I’ve gotten around to reviewing it, it isn’t playing anywhere that I’m familiar with. Although there are certain parks and highway underpasses where you can act out scenes from the film whenever you like, although those reenactments would involve you being eaten by voracious rats.

You might think that the impetus for remaking Willard was also eaten by those same rats, because as I watched this film I had no idea why this was necessary. It’s great that Crispin Glover was cast here, because he does and marvelous job and I really believed that he could somehow communicate, befriend, and lead an army of rats (which kind of says something Glover, doesn’t it?). But this movie doesn’t seem to accomplish anything except freak out people with musophobia (guess what that is a phobia of!), and it seems like a visit from Gertrude of Nivelles (the patron saint against rats and of fear of rats) would cast this movie into oblivion. Maybe that is what happened around here!

I’m curious if this film will get a big rental following, because I can’t imagine people were sitting around thinking “Gee, the big millennium thing was a big let-down. If only there was a film about a guy who relied on rats to do his bidding. I think there was a film like that back in the ‘70s or something, but why can’t they make a new movie? I hate old films!” Half of my female friends can’t stand mice or even hamsters; did some movie executive really think a film about largely malicious rats was going to win them over? Glover is great in an odd role and R. Lee Ermey is equally impressive as the human equivalent of an evil rat, but otherwise this film is a letdown. The scary part is that I wasn’t even frightened by the rats: I was more terrified by Willard’s mother’s toenails. Yikes!

I don’t want to be the instigator of poor moral choices, but I think Willard will function best as the source of a new college drinking game: every time you see a rat on the screen, everyone takes a shot. Wait, that would kill off every college students within a matter of weeks. Hmmm, I guess in this dog-eat-cat world, there isn’t much demand for a rat-eat-cat film. Although if you think Tim Burton are a little too light and fluffy for your taste, you should probably give this one a try!

Bobby’s rating: If I had an army of rats I would have taken over the world by now (cause my evil army of hamsters just isn’t cutting it)

Bobby’s review: “In this time of superhero movies, we are presented with another regular guy given an amazing power to right the wrongs of life. Is his power that of super strength? Flying? Controlling the weather? Swinging from the sky on a web? No! Even better his power is…” (flips through script… flipping… flipping). “His power is ‘controlling rats, sometimes’ — What the…!?!? What kind of stupid power is that? And not even all the time? What a lame movie… call me when X-Men 2 comes out!”

Okay, so this movie won’t be everyone’s cup of tea. It won’t even be everyone’s diet cherry 7Up. But I was pretty excited about seeing it because 1.) I love rats, (I know that makes me sound odd right off the bat) (I also like bats…) and 4.) my mom loved the original (I couldn’t think of a 2 or 3).

Without seeing the original, all I knew about the plot was that there’s this guy who’s a loser, and he ends up being friends with rats and getting them to do his evil bidding. Um… turns out that’s the whole movie right there. Not a particular intellectual plot, but Crispin Glovers’ acting is outstanding. Willard’s quick downward spiral into a completely insane man is perfectly reflected in his demeanor and expressions. Yet, you end up feeling sorry for him. Was there ever a moment in his life when things could have turned out differently?. On the downside, I did spend the whole movie waiting for him to pop one of the rats into his mouth like Dracula’s servant “Renfield” (he promised me lives… not human lives… but small lives). With a few more years practice Glover may give Christopher Walken a run for his “Creepy Movie Guy” money.

But not everything is attacking rats and property damage. Instead of a cool army of teenage mutant ninja rats, Willard ends up with a bunch of childish, jealous, and selfish rats that breed like, well… like bunnies (AGHGH! NO NO NOT BUNNIES!). There’s a bit of a hostile rat take over, and you realize that maybe Willard isn’t the one in charge.

I really wanted to see the rats do more cool things like maybe actually scare me. Okay, I’ll be honest, there’s ONE scene near the end, where the music is playing and you know that something is going to happen, the tempo increase, the volume rises and then “AHGHGHH!”. Yep, I’m that girl. I leapt two feet in the air and averted my eyes. I’m pretty sure I didn’t miss much, but when I looked back at the screen, Willard was wearing a tutu and dancing to Madonna. Okay… so not really, but wouldn’t that have made an interesting plot twist? It might have been enough to get me to actually recommend it to my friends as good entertainment.