Ratatouille

Review by Loc

Every year or so, I write a review for the newest Pixar film. Every time, I gush and gush about the previous Pixar offerings, from Toy Story to Finding Nemo to The Incredibles. Pixar just gets it, they nail it right on the head every time. Heart, real emotion, characters you care about, stories that are fun, everything works. Until Cars. Cars was not a bad film, but there wasn’t much meat on that one. It was like watching an extended Chevron commercial: talking cars, some personality, a blah story, it was a cool little flick, but it wasn’t up to Pixar standards. So, what about a movie about a rat who wants to be a cook? Qiuck hit: exceptional, just as expected.

With Ratatouille, Pixar gets back to its roots: great characters, fully developed story, eye-popping animation, and heart. Writer and director, Brad Bird, adds another impressive notch on his belt. After delivering the vastly underrated The Iron Giant and hitting a homerun with The Incredibles, Bird shifts gears with a superhero-less tale about a high-dreaming rat. And it works like magic.

Make no mistake about it, the premise is a tough sell. This isn’t a fluffy, lovable mouse or other inherently likeable critter. This is a rat, along with his entire clan of scurrying beasties. Then, you find out that the rat’s motivation, it’s lifelong dream, is to become a cook. Not a fun, fluffy cook for all the rats in the world. It wants to be a cook at a human restaurant, for human patrons. And to top it all off, the rat couples up with a human, controls him like a puppet by pulling his hair, and they become a cooking-dynamo-duo. Reactions may range from “huh?” to “what!” to “ewww!!”.

But it works, because Bird and company build a real story. There’s actually character development, there’s a reason to get invested in Remy, the dreaming rat, or Linguine, the bumbling chef. When Pixar does it right, they give you character driven stories, oftentimes clichéd, but usually heartwarming and sincere enough to make the difference. The formulas might look familiar, but the characters are always more unique and more developed than your average family-fun stuff. For Ratatouille, the story is nearly sublime, the characters are fully fleshed-out, and the film elicits a reason to care about what actually happens.

Technically, Pixar never misses it mark. Every new film seems to add amazing levels of detail that no one would expect. Little things, like the fur in this film, are amazing. Hairs sway ever so lightly, but all so independently, that the lifelike realism is stunning. The sprawling shots of Paris are great, and the great chase scene through the famed canals of France is superb. Watching a Pixar film is eating a great chocolate suffoule, that magical moment where the molten chocolate mixes with the chocolate cake is blissful. And I guess it’s fitting to compare Ratatouille to fine dining, since the, well you know, rat, master chef, all that stuff.

The voice talent is very good in this flick as well. Without the overpowering presence of A-list celebrities, the characters are exactly who they’re supposed to be, not famous actors guest-starring in a CGI-film. It works to benefit this film, as becoming invested in characters is what makes this story fly.

Overall, Ratatouille is an amazing achievement. Pixar reclaims its throne as the CGI-studio, putting out the highest quality films in the genre. It’s not just the technical achievements, rather computer animation is simply the perfect medium for these Pixar stories. After a bit of a misstep with Cars, Pixar’s follow-up is a great confluence of art and technology. Out of 5 stars, Ratatouille cooks up 4.25 stars. This will be the best movie of the summer blockbusters, and may compete for that title when the year ends as well.