Reviewed by Neil Davey
Stars the voices of Patton Oswalt, Peter O'Toole, Ian Holm,
Lou Romano, Brian Dennehy, Brad Garrett, Janeane Garofalo,
Will Arnett, Peter Sohn, James Remar, John Ratzenberger
Written by Brad Bird
UK certification U | UK RRP £22.99
DVD Region 2 | Runtime 117 minutes
Directed by Brad Bird
With Ratatouille, Pixar finally confirm what many of us have suspected for years. It’s not for kids. The younger members of the audience will love the main character — a culinary rat who dreams of becoming a chef — and his assorted fuzzy cohorts. They’ll also adore the chase scenes and slapstick moments. But they’ll also probably find the wordy nature of the screenplay a bore, while the deeper themes and wistfulness will completely pass them by. And then they’ll no doubt ask their parents why they shed a tear or two earlier but are now beaming happily from ear to ear.
Remy is the rat in question, a culinary genius with an innate sense of how to combine different flavours into a work or art. The rest of the family though don’t share Remy’s gift. Remy sees food as colours and musical notes and weaves and composes masterpieces. His family don’t see anything in food but do see nearly everything as food. Surrounded by philistines, Remy dreams of running a five star restaurant in Paris, like his hero Auguste Gusteau. When Remy is separated from the rest of his nest, things look bleak but, by happy coincidence, he’s washed up in the sewers of Paris and opposite Gusteau’s own place. Since Gusteau died, standards have slipped and the critics — particularly uber-food writer Ego (O’Toole) — have turned. Remy could be the place’s saviour — if, of course, he can persuade anyone to eat food prepared by a rodent.
Coincidence throws Remy and the young garbage boy Linguini together. With Linguini as the hands and Remy as the anonymous brains, they start to cook up a storm and, as events speed out of control, the inevitable emotional rollercoaster / character arc (delete your least favourite cliché) comes into play. While the nature of the story is typically Pixar — it’s about trust! Friendship! All the usual themes! — you won’t really notice the shortcomings or its predictable nature. Instead, you’ll be purring with happiness at the animation — how do they improve every time? Surely it’s a finite thing? — relish the anti-critic stance (because yes, many of our number are seriously, seriously up their own arses, and that counts double for restaurant critics) and weep with pleasure at the climactic scene of Ego’s subtle comeuppance.
If you thought the end of Monsters, Inc., was a cracker, you ain’t seen nothing yet. It’s as perfect a 30 seconds as you’ll see in the cinema this century, a virtually silent scene that will make you laugh and bring a poignant tear to the corner of the eye. For that alone, you’d have to give Ratatouille full marks. As part of such a supremely enjoyable overall package, it’s probably time to find a new scoring system for Pixar films. We’ve got to do something: I’ve been giving 'em full marks since Toy Story 2 and they keep getting better. Divine.
EXTRAS ***** As usual from Pixar, with a 5-star films comes a 5-star swag of extras. On Disc 1, as well os the film itself (derr) you get the short Lifted, which ran with Ratatouille in cinemas, and a new animated shart called Your Friend The Rat, starring Remy and Emile. Plus there's an interview with writer/director Brad Bird and chef Thomas Keller, who own's The French Laundry restaurant in California's Napa Valley. Disc 2 has a heap of behind-the-scenes stuff — 4 deleted scenes, 7 character profiles, 2 making-of featurettes (Building Paris and the Rapids scene in the sewer) — plus featurettes on Designing the Movie, Animatiing a Rat's World, Animating With a French Flavour, Brad Bird: The Big Cheese, Cooking 101, Remy's Incredible But Edible, Ratatouille Around the World and some trailers for a few other movies. Now that's plenty to sink your teeth into.