Movie review - Ratatouille

So people have been asking me why I haven't seen Ratatouille yet. Well now I have, and here's my review.Remy, a rat from the French countryside, secretly harbours a desire for gourmet food rather than the garbage the rest of his family eats. After accidentally alerting the vieille madame to the presence of rats in her house when trying to steal her saffron, Remy gets separated from his pack and ends up in the sewers of Paris. He ends up at the Gusteau's the restaurant that belonged to his deceased idol and now imaginary friend. On the same day, Alfredo Linguini gets hired as the garbage boy in the kitchen of Gusteau's. Seen by Remy, Linguini accidentally ruins a pot of soup and ham-fistedly tried to repair it. Remy steps in, and fixes it to the great acclaim of the clientele. To avoid Linguini getting fired and so Remy can fulfill a lifelong dream, the two decide to combine to revive the restaurant's fortunes!

That's pretty much the story. There are other elements of course for conflict etc etc. but otherwise *looks around* it's pretty weak. Its a fairly stock-standard *be true to yourself* story and there were times when I was fading out. Honestly? I found Linguini (Lou Romano) annoying. I mean sure, there are people who can't cook and unless you train, the likelihood of ever being able to chop vegetables like a pro is slim to none. But I find it incroyable that he couldn't even figure out what he was putting together aftera month. Or that he was stupid enough to not write the recipes down!!! A rat lives for 2, maybe 3 years. Did he think he could replace Remy?!?!

In contrast, I totally loved Remy (Patton Oswalt). Even though I handle rats - clean, lab-bred rats that have never been exposed to diseases - I would still never handle them without gloves and gown. And yet Ratatouille makes me think that a WILD SEWER RAT is cute and cuddly and should be allowed into commercial kitchens! I also liked Linguini's colleague Collette (Janeane Garofolo) who tries to teach him how to cook. Skinner (Ian Holm) who's trying to gain control of Gusteau's is a little bit 2-dimensional, but Anton Ego (Peter O'Toole) the reviewer who holds the fate of Gusteau's in his hands is who I loved best. The part where we see food having the power to transport Ego to his youth is possibly the best part of the film.

Now, I must make a comment that the voice characterisations was quite strange. While each actor themselves do a fine job, I want to know what's going on with the accents! The characters exhibit a melange of accents from faux French (Collette, Skinner), beautiful English (Ego), or generic American (Remy, Linguini). I wasn't sure if this was supposed to mean that Linguini is from somewhere, not Paris, or that Ego is English? Maybe I'm nit-picking here but I couldn't help thinking instead of getting fake accents, why not make everyone speak *normally* or get some French actors (e.g. Vincent Cassell, Jean Reno) who can speak English to do the voicing? Kinda like how they cast Mulan with Asian actors, never mind that it was in English?!

While the story is a bit of a letdown, the animation is exactly what we expect from Pixar. Paris is absolutely beautifully rendered and they certainly got the geography right :D. There are lot of beautiful shots over the rooftops of the city with the lit up Eiffel Tower in the background. I'd say Gusteau's is located somewhere on the left bank of the river, probably in the 7e arrondissement. It looks just like how I left it *sniff*. Another great sequence is when Remy is being washed around the sewers. Pixar may have done movement of water before in Finding Nemo, but this was something else with all the movment and bubbles and action! We also know how much I love animated hair and this movie doesn't disappoint - from the fluffy Remy to Collette's bob!
Reading over this review, I'm aware that it seems incredibly negative. However I really did like the movie, I just can't help being a little disappointed because the story didn't have the same degree of humour and pathos as other Pixar movies. I guess it's hard because they've set themselves such a high level to live up to. I'm also aware that the original director (Jan Pinkava) was replaced with Brad Bird at some point during production. Perhaps this was the reason behind the relatively weak story in comparison to the others. I wasn't as emotionally involved compared to Monsters Inc, or Finding Nemo, nor was it as exciting as The Incredibles or Wall-E.

Despite the technical and visual beauty, I found it hard to stay involved in Ratatouille. It's still within the top batch and it's way better than Cars, but.....sorry people. I think Persepolis should have been the winner of 2008 Animated Oscar. But Remy is really cute :D
8/10
(photos from rottentomatoes.com)