Ratatouille review

I have been a classic animation buff for many years. There's nothing I like better than watching Tex Avery & Chuck Jones cartoons on DVD. It's not only the humour of those Warner Bros. cartoons but the artistry. Also, I've never believed that cartoons should be made for kids. They should be made for everyone. A lot of today's animated films use Computer Generated Imagery (CGI) but a lot of these films have funny talking animals that are obviously aimed at kids. Pixar is the only company that seems to make animated films that concentrate on storytelling as opposed to gags. And adding director Brad Bird has raised their game even more. There's also something to be said for stability. For a while, it looked like Pixar might have to leave Disney. But once Michael Eisner left Disney, Steve Jobs was able to work out a deal and now Pixar is an integral part of the company. Ratatouille is their latest masterpiece.

The best thing about Ratatouille is Brad Bird takes the absurd premise of a rat as a great French chef and builds a believable story around it. This is done by making the setting as realistic as possible. It's a very funny film and there are plenty of gags but without the realistic setting, it would just be a string of gags. That's where Pixar succeeds and other studios fail. Remey is a rat with an unusual sense of taste for a rat. His hero is the famous French chef Gusteau, author of the book Anyone Can Cook and owner of a five star restaurant in Paris. Remey takes Anyone Can Cook to heart and decides he can be a great chef. After some misadventures, Remey ends up in Gusteau's restaurant in Paris. But Gusteau is dead and the restaurant is now owned by the evil sous chef Skinner. He's more interested in money than food and the restaurant loses two stars because of his attitude. An old friend of Gusteau's asks Skinner to give her son Linguini a job. He can't cook but figures out that Remey can. Linguini also falls in love with the one woman in the kitchen named Colette. From here, the whole idea is to convince uber critic Anton Ego to give the restaurant five stars and Remey's ratatouille does the trick.

The key to Ratatouille is the animators went the extra mile to make the setting of the film look realistic. It doesn't work if it looks too cartoony. Paris actually looks like Paris. The kitchen scenes and the look of the food is gorgeous because the animators took the time to go to several Paris restaurants and see how a kitchen operates. Remey's facial expressions are fabulous. There is evidence of this attention to detail throughout the film. This type of high quality storytelling has become a hallmark of Brad Bird. He also directed The Incredibles. But he'll never get the respect he deserves because he works in animation. The voices include Patton Oswalt, Ian Holm, Peter O'Toole, Lou Romano, Brad Garrett & Janeane Garofalo. They all do a very good job. Ratatouille is a shoe in for this year's Best Animated Film Oscar. Could it win Best Film? I doubt it but it's a great film for young and old alike. Keep 'em coming, Pixar. Here's the trailer for Ratatouille.