Ratatouille

Posted by Nathan Deen (nathan@filmschoolrejects.com) on June 29, 2007

A common yet unwanted lesson the summer season of movies usually teaches you is to never get your hopes too high and torture yourself with anticipation. But every once in a while a movie like “Ratatouille” comes along that’s as satisfying as a gourmet dinner at a five-star French restaurant. No, it’s better than that because it doesn’t quite satisfy in the sense of you wanting a second helping. Get your hopes high and keep them there people, “Ratatouille” is the real deal.

Director Brad Bird, who hit it big with 2004’s “The Incredibles,” has struck oil for Pixar again and “Ratatouille” is actually a summer movie that deserves every cent it makes at the box-office. The script to this little animated gem is just about perfect. I was very impressed with how Bird and co-writers Jim Capobianco, Emily Cook, Kathy Greenberg and Jan Pinkava (Pinkava worked on “A Bugs Life” and “Monster’s Inc.”) did such a cracker-jack job of combining great storytelling and well developed, multi-layered characters with good old-fashioned animated humor. This is the path that I’ve been wanting animated movies to take and not since “Shrek” have I been this satisfied and this entertained by one of these films; and it doesn’t even need the A-list voice cast that Shrek has. Here are people who really know what they are doing.

Remy (voiced by Patton Oswalt) is a rat with a special gift: a unique sense and creative feel for good food. His dad (voiced by Brian Dennehy) is worried because he spends so much time in the kitchen of the house he and his colony live in. One day, trying to find saffron to add to his mushroom and cheese dish, he is discovered by the old lady of the house and consequently the whole colony is discovered. Through the midst and confusion of trying to escape extermination, Remy is separated from the colony and gets lost in a sewer line.

When he makes his way to the surface he realizes he’s in the middle of Paris, next to a French restaurant called Gusteau’s, formerly owned by his human idol, Chef Gusteau (voiced by Brad Garret), whose book taught Remy everything he knows. Gusteau is deceased; the unintentional handiwork by the heartbreaking food critic known as Anton Ego (voiced by the great Peter O’Toole). Gusteau appears as a figment of Remy’s imagination throughout the movie.

Remy observes the kitchen and eventually gets the chance to make his own soup. Enter the young Linguini (voiced by Lou Romano), the new garbage boy at Gusteau’s, who discovers Remy at the helm of the soup pot but also discovers that the soup is delicious. Ordered by Chef Skinner (voiced by Ian Holm) to dispose of the rat, he instead befriends it and together they quickly become the hottest chef in Paris.

If the makers of such crap as “Wild Hogs,” “Norbit,” and “Epic Movie” ever see this movie, I’d imagine they’d be compelled to stare at a camera and say “I am not smarter than a fifth-grader!” The plots, the characters, and the dialogue of their films are nowhere near this clever and this funny. Basically, they have been outdone and schooled by a movie aimed at kids.

With that said, “Ratatouille” is the first animated film since “Shrek” that truly has something for everyone. You’ll love it, your kids will love it, and even your mother and grandmother will love it. As for other banal animated movies like “Happily N’ever After,” they might as well go and hold their heads in shame.

I don’t want to give anything big away, that wouldn’t be fair at all with this film. I’ll just say there are plenty of memorable moments along with a lot big laughs. The characters are wonderfully developed and the flow of the story is excellent. It’s the family movie of the year, if not the decade (next to “Shrek” at least) and should easily be an Oscar shoe-in.

Read more articles by Nathan Deen