Review: Ratatouille

Remy
has an uncanny gift for smell and taste and his ultimate dream is to
become a chef. The only problem: Remy is a rat and we all know, a
rat is a kitchen’s worst nightmare. Through a crazy twist of events,
Remy is separated from his colony, only to discover he’s in the
heart of Paris right in front of the restaurant of his culinary
hero; Auguste Gusteau. Remy eventually meets up with the
restaurant’s garbage boy, Linguini, who just happens to be a major
screw-up and desperate to keep his job. Together they embark on a
culinary odyssey.

I
liked this movie. It was cute, funny and the characters were great.
But for a Pixar film, it didn’t have the same type of
sophistication with the story or the look and feel of the animation
compared to its other predecessors. It was as if Pixar had a younger
brother who made this. It just didn’t have the Pixar standard.
That said, I still enjoyed it very much plus I’m a cooking
enthusiast so I appreciated it on other levels.

Another
aspect I really liked was the voice acting…I didn’t recognize
anyone’s voice! This is a good thing as you can really feel the
characters. It is not like typical animated features where you get
guys like Mike Myers doing his signature Scottish voice and applying
it to an Ogre (no disrespect to Myers…I love the guy, but you
still know it’s him). Needless to say, the voice acting in this film
was great all around as they all truly fit the characters to a T.

Now even though I thought the story was
inventive and most importantly "fun", I did have a few
issues with some of its key elements. Like for example the way Remy
controlled Linguini like a puppet by pulling on his hair. I realize
that this is a movie about talking rats, but I think they could have
come up with a better way to get around that. It just didn’t seem
plausible; it goes back to what I said earlier about the
“sophistication”.

Secondly, the violence was just a little too much. I, for one,
will be the first to admit that I laughed when the Granny (who looks
an awful like Geri from GERI’S GAME)
was blowing away her kitchen with a shotgun to kill the rats. Funny
stuff, but I don’t think they had to go down that route using
guns. A kid’s movie + guns equals bad news in my book especially for
a young kid’s movie. “Cartoon violence" is one thing, but
this was a little too real. One last thing… displaying dead rat
bodies in a window is also not good. Again, these are things that
could have been handled better, it’s Pixar…no?

But you know what, despite my nit-picking
(I’m trying to look at it from a parent’s perspective, I guess)
it’s still a good movie and I’m pretty confident that it’s
going to be trucking in loads of moolah this weekend! It will be
well deserved as it is entertaining and funny. I especially loved
its the ending…it was hysterical! Animation buffs, Pixar fans,
parents and, of course…the kids (‘cause it’s always about the
kids…right?) will enjoy this!

— by Tim
Goernert