Pulls the most out of an okay story

Rating: 7/10 (17 June 2007)

Ratatouille is a major step up from a lot of last year's animated fare, and a vast improvement from last year's Oscar winner for best animated feature. Here we re-discover sweet simplicity amped up with the expected story-telling techniques of Pixar, and here's the kicker, no heavy handed messages hammered in with a drill, but there certainly is a message and it's delivered with subtler grace despite some flaws. Although, aspects to the message are borderline confusing if you over analyze the reality that occurs in the film, but the film doesn't scream for over-analyzation in the same fashion as "Finding Nemo". For me, the animation slightly overpowers the story, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. The film is directed, camera-wise, with the same interesting techniques as "Happy Feet", but the film has more in store. We get to see the world mainly from Remmy's perspective, and it's visually exciting. The camera-work is what makes the film's physical humor work so well. More on the artistic scheme, the film looks really great. Particularly the lighting stands out. The colors are very lush and detailed; very accurate toward a real city-scape. Then the rat's fur are very impressive, it moves against the wind and gets wet very much like real rat hair. Don't let the detail in the clothes get past you either. The film manages to find a balance between superficial realism and animated characters. The character designs for the humans are marvelous (Bird seems to get much humor out of the smaller villains as seen in the past "Incredibles" and the non-Pixar film "Shrek") and the rats, while moving a lot like real rats still have acceptable personalities and animated form. So we feel like we're entering an animated world that is fleshy and real. Speaking of such, other animated marvels are the organic forms of the food. As real as the food in the film is, the film rightfully capture the spirit of the plot it pursues. It introduces the viewer into the world of fine-dinning and develops something rare in today's animation, a bleeding heart.
Story-wise, that's the only area where I can detect any trace of criticism. I felt at times, dare I say it, that the emotion was a little bit forced. There were just certain times I didn't understand a certain character's frustration. Also, I felt uneasy about the films unusual balance of fantasy and realistic themes, such as how the reactions to rats were carried our toward the end of the film and how it blends into the films major theme and other suspend disbelief occurrences. That lack of coherent continuity gives a writer a lot more flexibility in how to tell the story. In other words, it's kind of a shortcut. But it's an observation that is made up for by other successes in the film. The film very impressively for an animated film delivers some conventional themes with a little more depth (to truly enjoy it, I'd recommend erasing the fact that rats often carry disease from your mind). It's cute without embarrassingly forcing it and unpretentious. The very fact that what makes it work may fly over the heads of small children isn't a reason to condemn it. It's true though that I feel that younger kids may get a little restless halfway though, and not just through my own experience at the theater. however, this is another great film for an older audience to enjoy a simple well told story. As for whether it will have that lasting effect that Pixar films usually carry, only time will tell.