Ratatouille
At yesterday’s party, people wondered why I wasn’t blogging more since I got my iPhone. It’s awesomeness not withstanding, I don’t like to do it from the smallish keyoard. But to get back on the daily blogging track, I guess I should post my review of Ratatouille, which is only two weeks late.
At the end of the movie, I turned to The Seed and said that Pixar has a problem. Now it’s not the quality of the movie, but a marketing one. It’s a very good movie, but to market it as a fun ride for kids is selling it short.
Ratatouille centers around Remy the rat that has an uncanny sense of smell which leads him to wanting to cook. He makes it to Paris and the kitchen of Gusteau’s a former 5 star restaurant trying to get its reputation back. With the help of the dishwasher, Remy, brings back the gusto to Gusteau’s.
It’s an amazingly solid story with ebbs and flows that arise naturally. Nothing seems to have been added haphazardly. Like a good dish! It’s very mature story. One that would be hard to keep the young kids in line to watch. Maybe the animation will hold their interest, but after awhile the themes of the movie will go over the young one’s head and he’ll want to go eat some fried chicken fingers.
One thing about watching rats in the kitchen, it makes you want to puke. The advances in CG turned some of the shots of the rat warren rather disconcerting. It’s a cartoon but it looks so real. Gross.
In the end, this is another Pixar homerun. It’s made Brad Bird a very famous director who imbues stories with humanity. It’s rumored that he’s going to direct a live action film. It’s too bad, because he’s shown that the animated film can bring about some good storytelling.
4 of 5 stars.
One Reply to “Ratatouille”
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“gusto to Gusteau’s” “he’ll want to go eat some fried chicken fingers”
Those are 2 good lines. The “he’ll want to go eat some fried chicken fingers” is exactly what the problem is. Kids aren’t into stories with developement and ideas. They just want the “wow and the flash”. What can you do? Hopefully this will do well enough that producers won’t shy away from animation stories like this. I figure if we we keep showing kids films like this they’ll eventually start growing with the film.
Iy is a great film by the way.