Too much of everything

Plot so thin, it passes unnoticed.

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

After the events of the original movie "Willard" and after Willard's demise by Ben and his horde of killer rats, they have escaped from his house and Detective Cliff Kirtland (Joseph Campenella) is investigating the murders. A lonely disabled with a weak heart condition boy named A Danny Garrison (Lee Montgomery) befriends Ben and keeps it as a pet. Yet sometimes the rat would go out to lead it's friends to attack people in the city as it's up to the detective to stop the rats.A fairly decent sequel to the 1971 shocker Willard which was a surprise box-office hit which made Bing Crosby Productions and Cinerama greenlite a sequel. The film co-stars Tobey Kenneth and Meredith Baxter Birney, it's a story of a boy and his rat with some gritty dark edge thrown into it and the theme song by Michael Jackson which was nominated for best song of 1972 at the academy awards. The film is a twist on man vs rats with the Lassie style boy and his pet rat kind of thing with some shocks and all as the boy in the movie even uses the rats to attack some bullies who pick on him.

Ben is, apparently, the sequel to Daniel Mann's Willard, from the previous year.It picks up where the previous story left of.With a young boy, named Daniel- stricken to his home from illness- having befriended Ben, the leader of the pack of rats- trained by Willard Stiles in the previous film.The rats are running havoc through town- having already killed 3 people.And the police and city workers are having no luck tracking the pests down...they are just too intelligent.Seems they have taken to the sewers, to get around the city more efficiently.So the authorities pull out all the stops...flamethrowers and all...to rid the city of this menace, once and for all.Unless Daniel has any say in the matter, that is...While among the better films that qualify for the animal attack canon. It's still only moderately entertaining. And is probably most notable for it's theme song. Sung by Daniel (J. Lee Montgomery) in the film. But recorded by Michael Jackson for the credits- and released on his album of the same name the same year- for which it received a Golden Globe and Academy Awards Nomination.The acting from the kid was pretty good though...and it really makes you wonder where the hell they got all those rats from?! Cause there are loads!!! Worth a watch if you are into rats...or hate them and like to be scared...otherwise, it's passable.5 out of 10.

Screenwriter Gilbert Ralston concocted this sequel to the previous years' big money maker "Willard" in a logical enough way. Since the only main character who survived that film was the rat Ben, Ralston fashioned a story around him. As a detective named Kirtland (Joseph Campanella) investigates the death of Willard Stiles, rat armies are mobilized around the city, laying waste to businesses and terrorizing hapless humans. Ben makes his way to the home of Danny (Lee Montgomery), a young boy with a bad heart. The two become best of friends, and Danny vows to protect his new rodent pal, no matter what he has to do or what lies he has to tell.This quickly knocked out sequel (by cult director Phil Karlson of "Kansas City Confidential" and "Walking Tall" fame) is not in the same league as its predecessor, which isn't unexpected. In fact, it's a positively goofy, silly movie, with a fairly bad script by Ralston (unless it's meant to be seen as tongue in cheek; it's hard to tell). There's some cruddy dialogue, and "Ben" also becomes a painful exercise in preciousness and cuteness when we see what kinds of things the "talented" Danny does to amuse himself. Still, it can't help but be touching on occasion, as the lonely Danny declares Ben to be the only real friend he has.There's quite a bit of decent rodent action in this flick, with the little furry animals claiming a couple of human victims. There's a show stopping sequence in a supermarket, and a pleasingly intense finale in the sewers.Young Montgomery is appealing in his introductory role. Rosemary Murphy ("You'll Like My Mother") and future 'Family Ties' mom Meredith Baxter are fine as his mom and sister. (Baxter and Montgomery deserve some credit for doing those sewer scenes; Montgomery also has a lot of nerve in being willing to give a rat a kiss.) Most of the supporting cast has precious little to do, but it's full of familiar faces: Arthur O'Connell as a reporter, Kaz Garas as Kirtlands' partner, Paul Carr and Norman Alden as cops, Kenneth Tobey as a city engineer, and James Luisi as a city worker.The haunting, lovely theme song sung by a very young Michael Jackson is obviously the most memorable thing about the whole production.Fairly entertaining animal attack horror from the old days of using actual animals and not digital critters.Six out of 10.

After all the much anticipated ballyhoo to track down this rather difficult film to find - I was glad I saw it...for now just the one time if you please. Willard, its predecessor, was one creepy, deliciously black film with a unique story and some performances. You know...from actors. Bruce Davison was really quite good in that lead. Then there was Elsa Lanchester and, of course, Ernest Borgnine hamming it up as the mean Mr. Martin. What do we get in Ben? Acting is not its strong suit for sure. The film begins with Willard's demise. Immediately after the police and all the neighbors gawk at - what? There is a dead guy in the attic...anyway...of those neighbors standing outside is a family of three...a mother, a daughter, and a son. They become important once poison becomes the prescribed means to rid the town of the rats. The rats head for the sewers but Ben(not the Ben from Willard that was mean and nasty - but a kinder Ben - yes, he still has people stripped of their flesh by his rat army - but this go round he befriends a small boy with a bad heart who owns and makes his own marionettes, races around a room playing a harmonica, crawls through the sewers with only a slight cough afterward, and, in my favorite scene demonstrating his ridiculousness, composes an Oscar-nominated song in the matter of two minutes or so. Now, in his scenes with the small boy we get "Gentle Ben." Okay, so I am being a bit sarcastic and this film deserves it for it really is not all that good. Lee Harcourt Montgomery plays the annoying youth in a most sickening fashion yet, by the film's end, I was a bit touched by the final scene between a boy and his rat. Back to the film. The rest of the actors of note are Joseph Campanella as a police detective having really little to do. Even less to do is Arthur O'Connell in a role as the city's apparent only newspaperman. He is incredibly wasted though has the film's best lines laced sporadically around either the "rat action" or Danny's interplay with his puppets or rat. The scenes where the rats either kill, attack, or destroy are pretty funny. Nothing was chilling at all. How about the rats at the fitness center? What a hoot! What about the rats in the supermarket? Or when they "attack" sewer workers? Let's be honest - this film does have heart. It really does not have much else going for it EXCEPT that aforementioned Oscar-nominated song...sung by Michael Jackson and coming in the film with possibly less then five minutes. Before that it is word-sung by Danny, quickly tooted out on a harmonica, and given bits here and there in the film's score. Meredith Baxter of Family Ties fame plays Danny's sister and has a somewhat meaty role.