Ratatouille 2007

Usually when you think rats you think; gross, and it gets worse when you think of rats in a kitchen. Well PIXAR sheds new light on the thought of a rodent infested culinary laboratory.

When a young aspiring rat gets separated from his family he finds himself in the sewers under Paris. This rat, Remy (Oswalt), then takes advantage of the greatest culinary city in the world by exploring. He eventually gets caught in a kitchen and through a weird happening befriends a human named Linguini. Linguini knows that Remy can cook and Remy wants to take advantage of the fact the Linguini is human and welcome into the kitchen. They eventually work out a strange partnership where Remy sits on Linguini’s head and tugs at his hair to control him. This ends up working so well that they become the best chef in Paris and have all sorts of critics knocking at the restaurant’s door. One critic in particular had tried to shut down the restaurant years prior and has now returned for another try. Ego, the critic, ends up being incredibly surprised and please by the food he tasted, and waits to meet the chef. Ego is fine with the fact that his food was cooked by rats; however, the health inspector and former head chef had been at the restaurant that night and get it closed down due to health code violations. Nonetheless Remy and Linguini open a new restaurant with Ego as the primary investor and they all live on in happiness through culinary bliss.

To be able to cook is a difficult task, but to be able to cook well and be creative in the kitchen takes talent. On the surface this movie is about food & cooking, but when you read between the lines you find out that it is about following your dreams no matter how farfetched. Take a rat that wants to cook good food in a professional kitchen for example; that is pretty out there to me. To follow your dreams and accept all of the consequences that follow is a truly brave and admirable thing. The story of this film can even be thought of as a “coming out” story because Remy reveals who he truly is inside to the ones he loves. At first he is afraid of their judgment but soon realizes that he should be proud of who he is and stand up for what he believes in, and that is the true message of the movie.

What made this very creative and subliminal lesson easy to take in were the look, style, and entire feel of the film. The movie, having been set in Paris; one of the most well known cities for its culinary expertise, gave the look for the need to cook a more believable feel. Besides the setting, the overall look of the film was very saturated and that gave it a more solid state. However, the greatest visual aid to Ratatouille was the phenomenal character animation. As you can tell, provided you have seen most or all of the other PIXAR films, they try to one-up themselves every movie they make, and they succeed at it. For Ratatouille their one-upper was the character animation. The animators went back through history to study some of the masters of character animation such as Tex Avery and Chuck Jones. If you take an in depth look at the film you will see exaggerated movements and expressions on the characters. In animation that is how we make the characters more expressive, or for lack of a better word; animated. Besides the character animation, the characters themselves were exceptionally impressive. Each character looked as though their design reflected their personality, and it ended up that they did. A perfect example is Chef Skinner, who is physically short and ends up falling short in personality and in the brains department as well. Another great character is Anton Ego the food critic, or as I call him; the cryptic critic due to his look of knocking at Death’s door. The PIXAR designers try to communicate how evil he is so much that they designed the room that Ego works in to be shaped like a coffin.

Yet again these scrumptious characters would be nothing if it were not for their mind-blowing actors lending their voices. In the line-up we have the accomplished and world renowned actor; Peter O’Toole as Anton Ego. There is also the adept Ian Holm as Chef Skinner. The big man with the echoing deep voice; Brad Garret, pulls off an amazing French accent as Chef Gusteau. The up and coming Lou Romano takes the lead as Alfredo Linguini alongside Patton Oswalt as Remy and even Janeane Garofalo as Colette, the only female in the kitchen. PIXAR seems to have a knack for voice casting, which is another reason they are so impressive. PIXAR is also very inspiring, so much that I was inspired to cook ratatouille for my family, and it turned out to be astounding. If you can’t take my word for it that Ratatouille is a tasty delicacy among films; then you need to go sink your teeth in it for yourself. Bon Appétit!!

Run-time: 111 mins

Directed by: Brad Bird and Jan Pinkava (Co-director)

Written by: Brad Bird and Jan Pinkava

Starring: Patton Oswalt, Lou Romano, Janeane Garofalo, Brad Garret, Ian Holm, Peter O’Toole