Ah, Pixar.
I love Pixar animated films. They continue to set the bar for non-traditional, CGI animation.
Some of my all-time favorite movies are Pixar movies: Toy Story, Toy Story 2, The Incredibles.
I finally got around to watching Ratatouille, the latest Pixar flick, on DVD, and I have to say, while it’s a step up from their last feature Cars, (a huge disappointment for me despite having lowered my expectations as a result of the fairly unimpressive trailers) Ratatouille, while certainly an enjoyable movie, doesn’t come anywhere near a Toy Story (really though, what could?) or a Finding Nemo.
I actually saw Cars in the theater shortly after it first came out, simply because I always go to see Pixar films in the theater. After sitting through Cars, (and don’t get me wrong, Cars is not a terrible film. It’s watchable. It just happens to be Pixar’s worst.) I decided to wait until Ratatouille came out on home video - a good call. It’s a worthwhile rental, but not one of the movies I’ll be adding to my library or watching again any time soon.
The movie, directed by Brad Bird, (who really knocked one out of the park with The Incredibles) tells the story of Remy, a rat (voiced by Patton Oswalt) who arrives in Paris with dreams of becoming a great chef like his idol the late, great French chef Auguste Gusteau.
Drawn to Gusteau’s now flagging namesake restaurant, Remy is discovered and caught by Alfredo Linguini (Lou Romano), a young man with no culinary skill whatsoever, recently hired to clean up after the cooks. Linguini, a softie incapable of drowning the rat as instructed, discovers that Remy is no ordinary rodent. Remy understands English (good thing no one speaks a lick of French in Paris), is amazingly dexterous for a rat, can stand on two legs, and - this is important – the rat sure can cook.
If you’ve seen the trailers, you know this much already: Linguini and Remy team up, with Remy hidden beneath the young man’s toque, “pulling the strings” so to speak, and orchestrating Linguini’s meteoric rise in the culinary world. But Linguini has a thing for Colette, a no-nonsense female cook at Gusteau’s, and keeping things under wraps proves more difficult than expected, and Remy’s thieving rat relatives are mystified by Remy’s culinary aspirations when there’s a pantry full of edibles ripe for the raiding.
There’s a greedy, little former sous chef named Skinner with a lucrative frozen foods deal in the works, a mean, old food critic named Anton Ego ready to take Linguini (Gusteau’s illegitimate son, but even Linguini doesn’t know that) down a few notches, and, of course, a health inspector all thrown into the mix by the film’s end, but the results are uninspired, and a few of the “ingredients” detract from the whole.
The movie, while charming, is just not as funny as previous Pixar endeavors. Blame it on the script, I suppose. Also, Remy spends a lot of time having discussions with a self-proclaimed figment of his imagination, the ghost spirit of Chef Gusteau, which I found distracting. It’s clumsy storytelling in my opinion. Another problem, and I’m sure there are plenty of folks who’ll disagree with me on this one:
With Cars at least, you know going in that there aren’t any humans to be found driving the ChevronCar-esque inhabitants of Pixar’s imaginary auto world. Similarly, it’s easy to accept that there are imaginary monsters lurking in the closet, or toys that come to life when nobody’s watching, but a rat that can read and understand English, hiding under a chef’s hat pulling on hair, manipulating a human in the “real” world?
I know it’s a cartoon intended for kids (mostly), but as my expectations have risen with each new Pixar film (it’s their own fault really for being so kick-ass), I find it hard to overlook these minor gripes. Sure, talking bugs aren’t exactly subtle, but at least they’re not interacting with humans in unbelievable ways (like the recent Bee Movie – no, I haven’t seen it).
The animation is top-notch (with the cutest little cartoon rats you ever laid eyes on; proof of this claim below), and the backgrounds are simply amazing. The sumptuous, eye-grabbing detail Pixar’s animators have managed to throw in for this outing makes for gorgeous eye-candy but that’s almost to be expected as each new Pixar animated feature improves at least technically on the last.
Ratatouille is definitely worth a rental, but like last year’s Cars and, going way back, A Bug’s Life before it, Ratatouille doesn’t quite measure up to Pixar classics like Toy Story or The Incredibles.
If you do rent Ratatouille, don’t forget to check out the animated short Lifted (it’s the first option on the main menu) which is a true return to form, at least as far as Pixar animated shorts go.
Ratatouille - 3
Tags: Pixar Animated Short Lifted, Ratatouille, Ratatouille Movie Review, Ratatouille Review
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