Saturday, June 30, 2007
Movie review, take two: Ratatouille
I’ll get right to the point – Ratatouille is marvelous, stupendous, eye-popping, hilarious, touching, dramatic. In short, everything that we’ve come to expect out of a Pixar film. The fact that they can continue to deliver such incomparable moviemaking film after film after film means that Pixar has surpassed the “amazing” level. They have created their own level, the “Pixaresque” level, if you will. And it’s one which every other film, animated or not, should strive to reach.
Ratatouille
In the hilarious new animated-adventure, Ratatouille, a rat named Remy dreams of becoming a great chef despite his family's wishes and the obvious problem of being a rat in a decidedly rodent-phobic profession. When fate places Remy in the city of Paris, he finds himself ideally situated beneath a restaurant made famous by his culinary hero, Auguste Gusteau. Despite the apparent dangers of being an unwanted visitor in the kitchen at one of Paris' most exclusive restaurants, Remy forms an unlikely partnership with Linguini, the garbage boy, who inadvertently discovers Remy's amazing talents. They strike a deal, ultimately setting into motion a hilarious and exciting chain of extraordinary events that turns the culinary world of Paris upside down. Remy finds himself torn between following his dreams or returning forever to his previous existence as a rat. He learns the truth about friendship, family and having no choice but to be who he really is, a rat who wants to be a chef.
Source: Cinema Source
The main reason for their success? As I’m sure I’ve stated in every other review I’ve done of a Pixar film (Toy Story, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, to name just a few), their eye for and attention to detail is what sets them apart. That singular vision is on full display in Ratatouille, which features perhaps the riskiest main character they’ve ever put on a screen – a rat named Remy (voiced by Patton Oswalt). Oh, sure, he’s pretty cute, but he’s also living the life of a rat, which means living in dank, dark places like attics and sewers, and scavenging through the garbage for food. Not that he’s happy doing that – you see, Remy has a talent rare among rats, a discerning palate. When he gets separated from his clan living in the French countryside, Remy finds himself in Paris, the culinary capital of the world. He finds his way to Gusteau’s, a former 5-star restaurant down on its luck thanks to a scathing review by the most-feared critic in Paris, Anton Ego (Peter O’Toole), and the untimely death of Gusteau himself.
When Remy puts together an exquisite soup by happenstance and kitchen gofer Linguini (Lou Romano) is credited with the creation (trust me, it makes perfect sense in the movie), the two come to an agreement – Linguini will protect Remy if Remy will help Linguini continue to make masterful dishes. Throughout the rest of the film, their tenuous partnership is threatened from all sides by jealous coworkers, a suspicious head chef (voiced to perfection by Ian Holm), and Remy’s reconnection with his family, who can’t understand why he wants to live in the human world and forsake everything they hold dear (even if that’s eating nondescript trash).
When I say that writer/director Brad Bird and the Pixar staff sweat the details, I mean everything. Pixar set the bar for computer-generated animation with the original Toy Story, and they have continued to raise the bar every time out. This time the “wow” factor comes through with, as funny as it may sound, the texture of the rats’ fur, which moves with remarkable realism, as well as the breathtaking Parisian landscape and city streets. One would have to watch this film frame-by-frame to truly understand what a remarkable feat Pixar has accomplished with Ratatouille. Rats are known for being able to squeeze through the tiniest holes, and this film literally follows Remy and his cohorts through those holes. The speed and agility of Remy, not to mention the danger of the situations he finds himself in, makes for some truly spectacular set pieces, whipping back and forth through the restaurant, in the streets, and dozens of other places.
But much as the animation impresses, it’s on equal footing with the storytelling and humor. The film makes us believe in this outrageous situation, but never lets us forget that it could change at the drop of a hat. Most importantly, though, Ratatouille maintains the appeal of an animated film (i.e. kid-friendly) while never reducing its humor to its lowest point. There is the requisite slapstick and funny-looking and -sounding characters, but the film has enough adult touches that it never feels like “just a kids’ film.” Besides, little flourishes like having the evil critic live in a coffin-shaped room and rats running away en masse from a shotgun-wielding grandma are universal in appeal.
As if you couldn’t tell already, Ratatouille is a fabulous film, and could quite possibly be the best movie you'll see all summer. Pixar is now 8-for-8 in making stellar feature films, and I can virtually guarantee that streak won’t stop with next year’s Wall-E and 2009’s highly-anticipated (by me, at least) Toy Story 3. Special mention should also be made of the great short film, “Lifted,” which precedes Ratatouille. That film, about an alien abductor-in-training, shows that Pixar can be superlative even without words.
