Quick disclosure on this review. Pixar’s head guy is Steve Jobs who is also the CEO of Apple, my employer.
Hiring director Brad Bird was one of the smartest moves Pixar ever made. For years he worked on The Simpsons and then left to oversee The Iron Giant for Warner Brothers. On his first outing with Pixar, he gave them The Incredibles which is one of their best movies. Now he helmed Ratatouille and thankfully he delivered because Cars was a disappointment, but still superior to the trash from PDI and other imitators. I also felt Finding Nemo was just the Toy Story plots set in the ocean so Pixar’s teflon was starting wear down.
The story is about Remy, a rat with an above-average sense of smell. This also gives him human tastes and opinions on food unlike the other rats in the colony, they’re fine with eating garbage. Through his foolish actions, he ends up in Paris and underneath the restaurant of his deceased hero, Chef Gusteau. Recently a cruel critic (the ever awesome Peter O’Toole) made Gusteau’s place a shadow of its former glory and the current boss Chef Skinner spends more energy licensing frozen foods with Gusteau’s image on them. Enter Linguini, a bumbling garbage boy Remy catches trying to alter the evening soup. Through an exciting frenetic action sequence of Remy “fixing” the soup, Linguini and Remy form a partnership. What follows from there is predictable yet Bird and Pixar successfully execute the story through their past strengths: great voice acting, solid pacing and the proper amount of attention to detail.
Right away the thought of a rat wanting to cook gourmet food for humans is disgusting, not humorous. According to NPR’s Fresh Air, Bird stated he was brought in midway to work on this and one of the key elements he immediately changed was making the rats appear as rats. He said when the movie started production the rats walked upright, had shorter tails and human-like hands. Thankfully he got his way, the “ick” factor is critical to the story and it is present through the animation of rat swarms; how they scurry and what they look like when wet. Now this doesn’t mean I had trouble eating my pizza while watching this, then again I had no difficulty eating during Grindhouse neither. The film needs this to remind the audience why humans freak out when they see Remy and his colony. The equally important animation of the human characters is on par with The Incredibles even if they’re not performing as superheroes. In Ratatouille Linguini and Skinner are more involved in cartoon violence a la Homer: falling, tripping, sliding and other unfortunate, painful “stunts.” How the critic Ego walks is particularly funny when it is contrasted to his assistant. Ratatouille secures Pixar’s rightful place as the number one producer of animated features today. The computer-generated novelty wore off years ago. Content is king, not the technical means and the success of the hand-drawn show Spongebob Squarepantsproves that.
Like all their movies, it begins with a short called Lifted. My friends who love the X-Files will enjoy it the most. A couple children at our showing were terrified and demanded to be taken home due to its loud and bright nature so if one takes small children (under six_, it might be best to sit down after this concludes.
Worth Seeing? An emphatic YES. Definitely in a theater for the sound and size of the picture. The visual details might appear on a fancier TV but Pixar tends to wait a while longer before releasing the DVD.