Ratatouille
My significant other and I went to the local arts cinema to see Ratatouille this week. We didn't get a chance when it was in the main cinemas last year. The first interesting thing is that there was not one child in an audience of about 150. I imagine a very different atmosphere in the local Vue before Christmas.
Anyhoo, what did I think? I thought it was worth commenting on, as was the short before it. Lifted is its name and it is a small work of genius as so many of the Pixar shorts have been. A very funny, laugh all the way through, story about a young apprentice green blob alien in a giant spaceship being marked on his/her/its abduction skills. I'll say no more but recommend the Ratatouille DVD for this alone (if it's on it).
The main event is a very watchable, thoroughly entertaining romp through the culinary streets of Paris. It is not perfect and not up to Pixar's own Monsters Inc standard but worth seeing. It has flaws.
The decision to limit (or the financial constraint on) the rendering of the human characters detracts from the action a little. The curious lack of a female love interest for Remy, the main rat character, is strange, especially in the 60s Parisian setting. The complete lack of any felines is bewildering. The main human character is an unnecessarily slap-stick caricature or is a lazy writer's mechanism for explaining the entertaining but absurd physical gyrations the rest of the film relies on.
The Peter O'Toole Anton Ego food critic character steals the show, both in animation and voice acting terms, marvelous.
The streets of Paris are stylishly and lovingly drawn, not least in the scooter chase scene. But none of it is up to the creative mastery of any Studio Ghibli film or the magical Belleville Rendez-Vous. The intended audience is not the same in most of these films but are nonetheless valid comparisons in the art of animation. The same is true of the story telling.
I still recommend it though. If Belleville Rendez-Vous gets five stars then this deserves 3, which makes it well worth seeing.
