Ratatouille

I'm a huge fan of animation, and feel that most of Pixar's movies have been among the greatest film making of my lifetime, to say nothing of the history of animation. I also love rats, having had no less than half a dozen of them as pets. I've been to Paris and thought it was not only one of the most exciting cities I've ever been to, but one of the most beautiful as well. This movie is good, but unfortunately left me wishing for just a little bit more than it delivered.

The animation is flawless and awesome. Paris is beautiful, the characters look funny, and I especially loved seeing the rats run. There are a lot of exciting action sequences, and who doesn't love a good chase scene? There are emotional moments, characters learning about life and how to embrace the differences between themselves and others, villains who get theirs, and even an homage to Foghorn Leghorn. How did this movie fall short of my expectations?

I think the biggest way is in character development. There are a bunch of characters in this movie, but most of them keep to the periphery rather than each coming forward and adding some special spice to the soup, pun intended. They're interesting enough, but too often summed up, not present enough to add that extra kick Pixar movies usually have, and too many conclusions are sped to. Especially with Colette and Remy's father. One day Colette is pinning Linguini's sleeve to a cutting board with knives, the next day she's making-out with him behind the restaurant. Remy's father has a few arguments with him, shows him the rat death store, and throws in a "good job son!" at the end. Remy and Linguini, although dependant on each other to make their dreams come true, never really seem to connect as friends. Remy can control Linguini's every physical move, but they rarely talk or share much more than several gestures of frustration when each isn't getting what they want out of the other. You feel a partnership between the two, but never really a friendship.

One other way in which the movie was a little lacking was the source material they had to draw from. On our way out of the theater I asked the wife what she thought of the movie and she said, "There's only so much you can do with cooking and rats" and I think she's right. Toy Story had almost every kind of toy you could imagine to give huge variety and character to the story, with Monsters, Inc. the only limitation was what they were able to dream up, same with The Incredibles and the variety of superpowers they came up with (and just a touch of spy movie stuff added for good measure), with Cars they were able to find a vehicle for every life form in the movie. With Ratatouille, there's only so much you can do with cooking and rats, and that's why the character development needed to be better¹.

As movies go, this is good, especially for kids. It's very visually dazzling to watch, it has a lot of exciting slapstick moments, cute furry creatures, and an important lesson for all kids to learn. As Pixar Movies go, it's a little less than you'd expect from the greatest animators of our time, and I still haven't decided if I'm going to own this one.

high points: Paris looking just as awesome as Paris does, swarming rats, funniest use of the word "documents" I think I've ever heard, and old lady shotgun.
low points: You won't like this movie as much as your kids will.

1) I felt the same way about Finding Nemo and fish.