Film - Ratatoullie
Life is hard for a rat, especially Remy (Patton Oswalt), a rat with a refined sense of smell. Not happy with eating garbage with his brother, father and the rest of the colony, Remy sneaks into the house to watch cooking shows on TV. His favourite is Auguste Gusteau (Brad Garrett), whose mantra “anyone can cook” has been Remy’s life-long inspiration.
The story, written by Jan Pinkava, Jim Capobianco and Brad Bird, is the typical hero’s quest that makes all of the Pixar movies so great. Forced out of the house Remy follows his imaginary guide to Paris and the famous Gustaeu restaurant. Together with Linguini (Lou Romano, production designer on The Incredibles), useless chef and unknown heir to the restaurant, Remy overthrows the sinister (but Pixar-style tiny) Head Chef Skinner (Sir Ian Holm, who played Bilbo Baggins in Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy) and restores Gusteau’s name.
Along the way Remy reconciles with his estranged rat family, and Linguini finds love. Perhaps the most notable performance is Peter O’Toole’s Ego, the foreboding food critic that delights in breaking, rather than making, restaurateurs.
The animation is, of course, incredible. A number of renowned French restaurants opened their doors to assist in the production, and it shows: the attention to detail stunning. The colour and energy of Paris is captured brilliantly, making it as much a travel story for the parents, as a comedy.
Lifted, the short film that ran before the feature (small alien learning from fat alien how to suck humans up into the spaceship) was cute, and received lots of laughs from the crowd. Which was in some contrast to the feature itself.
Ratatouille’s plot does have slow points and kids grew restless during some parts. Molly, 12, gave it 2 out of 5. ‘I found like you knew what was going to happen and there wasn’t much action.’ But she did think the quality of the animation was ‘pretty good’. Lily, 10, thought it was better than Finding Nemo and that ‘it was good for kids because it has good characters’. She gave it 5 out of 5, and 8 out of 10. (Because you can, when you’re 10.)
If you love these animated films then you should go along. If you consider yourself a bit of a foodie, you’ll enjoy it as well. If you’ve got kids, take them. When it comes to laughs, Ratatouille is no Nemo, but it’s still beautifully animated and good fun.
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