Friday, July 20, 2007

Ratatouille..vermin

Ratatouille - Brad Bird - 2007 - 3/10

Summary:

Remy (Patton Oswalt) is a rat who loves to cook and his high standards for food have gotten him in trouble before. Besides that, Remy's brother and father prefer that he eat garbage and stay close to the nest so they can use Remy's super-smell skills ti determine if their food has rat poison on it. But the family is separated and Remy ends up in Paris. And this time, Remy's stomach gets him caught by Linguini (Lou Romano), in the kitchen of Gusteau's resteraunt, adding ingredients to the soup. Luckily for Remy and Linguini the soup is very warmly received and the chefs thing Linguini is responsible. In order to keep up appearances and fulfill his dreams, Linguini and Remy team up (Remy hides in Linguini's chef's hat, literally controlling him) to become one super chef. It's not that easy. Strange things are afoot as the manager begins to suspect Linguini is not the real chef. But Remy and Linguini must hold together to keep people coming in and defeat their nemesis - Anton Ego (Peter O'Toole) - the man who's harsh review gave Gousteau a heart attack.

Critique

The animation was great - simply amazing. It all looked so so so good. And in this regard, the movie really was "the next step" in the evolution of animated movies. Also, the use of voiceactors instead of allstar "regular" actors is an admirable move to create the best possible movie instead of just cashing in on big names. However. my friends really hyped this movie, so maybe I went into it expecting too much. Being called "Pixar's best movie" really raised my guard. And unfortunately, this movie was far from it - barily coming close to A Bug's Life (the low end, not the high end of Pixar's greats). The movie is simply not that great. From the story. to the dialogue, the movie is nothing new. The characters, what they do, the plot progressions, the "jokes," all seem very old. And not anywhere close to old in a good way. Not a single line or plot point is unpredictable - you can practically say the lines before they're even prompted - its like a computer playing chess. And frankly, while the voiceactors are a good step forward, some of the voices are just downright annoying (unintentionally so). I don't think the laughter or adventure was anywhere close to either of the Toy Story movies. The puns and clever inside jokes meant for parents are even cornier - characters named after foods is not funny - its just cheesy (forgive the pun). And a criticism that can destroy any movie even applies here, which children's movies usually escape, is that the you just don't care for the characters.

Verdict:

Way overrated.

If you liked this movie, see...
...Toy Story
...Toy Story 2
...Monster's, Inc.

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