space
head
head head head
Home Contact RSS Feed
COMICS   •   MOVIES   •   MUSIC   •   TELEVISION   •   GAMES   •   BOOKS
DVD Review: Ratatouille
space
Dr. Royce Clemens   |  

Pixar's Ratatouille DVD
Ratatouille
Directed by Brad Bird
Starring (voices) Patton Oswalt, Brad Garrett, Brian Dennehy, Ian Holm, Janeane Garofalo, Peter O’ Toole
Walt Disney Video
Rated G

To watch Ratatouille is not merely to love it. To watch it is actually almost closer to getting high off of it. It buzzes along at a fast pace on such a level of giddy invention and superior craftsmanship that it rubs off on you. Meticulous skill and an almost slavish will to entertain without pandering are not mutually exclusive, but seeing this movie you wonder why they aren’t in the same place at the same time more often. And this has left me on the underside of hyperbole, so I’ll do my best to restrain myself. I’ll just let it slip that I’d want to call Ratatouille one of the best films of the year, except that I have a little voice in the back of my head asking “Just THIS year?”

And yes, it is an animated movie that features a talking rat. Yes, it was released by Disney. And yes, in every review, some jackass will say “Adults will like this movie MORE than kids!” like it’s some kind of brand spanking new concept that an animated feature isn’t JUST for the twelve-and-under set. But I’m willing to venture that Ratatouille is made exclusively for adults. Kids will like it fine, but they’ll then move on to something more puerile and violent (and they can’t be blamed for this, because they’re kids). But adults who appreciate great skill and wonderful storytelling and near unparalleled creativity, adults who have lost the will to dream and who wonder where the quality went, and who have all but coiled into a snobbish ball thinking mainstream American cinema has nothing left to give them are not just the ideal audience for this picture. They’re the MANDATORY audience.

So much for restraining myself from hyperbole”¦

The hero of our story is a French rat named Remy, voiced by comedian Patton Oswalt in a performance that could be lightly stated as “enthusiastic.” He’s caught in a world that doesn’t understand him, for he has an acute sense of smell and refined taste in food. He is unhappy with the garbage his father (Brian Dennehy) feeds to himself and the rest of the rat colony. One thing leads to another and Remy finds himself in Paris, overlooking a restaurant where a garbage boy named Linguini (Lou Romano) tinkers with a pot of soup. Remy rushes down to try to salvage the ruined confection (making it a big hit with the food critic in the dining room), but is discovered by Linguini and the chef Skinner (Ian Holm). Skinner orders Alfredo to take the rat outside and kill it.

But Linguini and Remy develop communication and understanding. Linguini has no talent and is expected to make the soup again. Remy has no place in a kitchen and knows how to cook. So they team up and learn how to communicate in the kitchen without anyone else suspecting a thing, leading to set-pieces of inspired and Chaplinesque comic invention. There are scenes where Remy is building culinary masterpieces with this look of fevered discovery on his face. One I could only assume co-writer/director Brad Bird had making it.

Believe it or not, the big draw of Ratatouille is not the animation. Oh it helps, and more on that later, but the real draw is the fantastic script by Bird, Jim Capobianco, and Jan Pinkava. It reveals itself early on when one of the rats asks Remy why he’s walking upright on his hind legs. I had taken it for granted that, well, that’s what rats DO in animated movies, and it just struck me as very observant. All the characters are relatable, human, and well-developed. The story is wonderful and all the little subplots act like tributaries to a river and not hacked off little tangents of their own (several writers would do well to study this movie). The pace never flags, nothing is contrived, and there are just as many laughs in the last half hour of the movie as there are in the first half.

But the animation should not be discounted either. The kids at Pixar really make their bones with this movie for no other reason than their depiction of Paris, as first seen in wide view by Remy from the roof of a building. It’s at that moment where the fact that the film is animated becomes wholly irrelevant (or we just plain forget). I have never been to Paris, but there were times where I believed that’s what I was looking at. Oh, you could have told me that all that was done inside a computer, but all that would have gotten you was five across the eyes and being called a liar. And how you could spout such dishonest filth from your mouth with your pants visibly aflame (from the lying), I shall never know.

Remy is, essentially, an enthusiast who geeks out over everything he likes. And seriously, who better to voice a guy like that than Patton Oswalt? He lends Remy a kind of unpolished glee that seems like it’s not really acting. Also unpolished is Lou Romano as Linguini, but whether that was intentional (because he’s acting) or unintentional (because this is his first big acting job after being an animator), I do not know. I just know it works, as Linguini is just so damned relatable as a decent man turned fraud, trying to keep his head above water. Holm is gleefully diabolical as Skinner, and I must also mention Peter O’Toole and Brad Garrett for their good (but brief) work. The only weak link is Janeane Garofalo as the love interest. Not because of her acting, but because of her accent. At times it seems to sound more Chinese than French.

A couple of more people I’d like to get on the love-in here: Michael Giacchino proves once again that he’s one of the best composers in Hollywood by his fine work on the score. And props must be given to Executive Producer and Pixar head honcho John Lasseter who deserves a bucket of cash for letting Bird do his thing and (on an unrelated note) a Nobel Prize for bringing some of Hayao Miyazaki’s works stateside, unmolested and unscathed.

Another staple of reviews of this film is that the reviewers call Brad Bird “a genius in animation.” Kinda eager to throw that “in animation” part in there, aren’t they? That’s like saying “His son lettered in High School”¦ in band.” So let’s play a little game of connect the dots. Bird has also written and directed The Incredibles. It’s “just an animated movie,” but it made a boatload of dough and is one of the few animated films nominated for a screenplay Oscar. Before that, he made The Iron Giant. “Just an animated movie,” but it developed a devoted following on DVD after its dismal theatrical release, and I’ve seen grown men moved to tears by it. Before THAT, he was a writer and executive on The Simpsons. “Just an animated show,” but a cultural cornerstone and if you didn’t notice, that downturn in the show’s quality everyone talks about? It happened after Bird left.

The track record speaks for itself, don’t you think? If I may be so bold, doesn’t that make Bird more than “a genius in animation?” If I may be bolder still, after Scorsese and Spielberg, doesn’t that make Bird the best director working in America?

**** out of 4

2 Comments »

  1. Always a pleasure to read.

    Comment by Jerry — November 7, 2007 @ 4:55 pm

  2. I saw the film twice, with my kids. The first time, the ending caught me by surprise and left me choking back tears.

    The second time, I got to watch the nuance and the complex animation. And, still, in the dark, the ending overwhelmed me again. Kids couldn’t possibly understand the complexity in this movie, but they had to come along with me anyway.

    Comment by dmax — November 7, 2007 @ 7:02 pm

RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URL

Leave a comment

space
Tags:
space
Previous Article
space
Next Article
«
»
space
space
space
Amazon.com
space
You may have noticed that we're now AD FREE! Please support Geeks of Doom by using the Amazon Affiliate link above. All of our proceeds from the program go toward maintaining this site.
space
Geeks of Doom on Twitter Geeks of Doom on Facebook Geeks of Doom on Instagram Follow Geeks of Doom on Tumblr Geeks of Doom on YouTube Geeks of Doom Email Digest Geeks of Doom RSS Feed
space
space
space
space
The Drill Down Podcast TARDISblend Podcast Westworld Podcast
2023  ·   2022  ·   2021  ·   2020  ·   2019  ·   2018  ·   2017  ·   2016  ·   2015  ·   2014  ·  
2013  ·   2012  ·   2011  ·   2010  ·   2009  ·   2008  ·   2007  ·   2006  ·   2005
space
Geeks of Doom is proudly powered by WordPress.

Students of the Unusual™ comic cover used with permission of 3BoysProductions
The Mercuri Bros.™ comic cover used with permission of Prodigal Son Press

Geeks of Doom is designed and maintained by our geeky webmaster
All original content copyright ©2005-2023 Geeks of Doom
All external content copyright of its respective owner, except where noted
space
Creative Commons License
This website is licensed under
a Creative Commons License.
space
About | Privacy Policy | Contact
space