Ratatouille

Rating: 7/10 (13 July 2008)

Like all great artists, it was obvious that sooner or later Pixar would go through a bit of a rough patch when it came to their movies. From the giant first steps of "Toy Story" over a decade ago, each of the films kept getting better and better, each showing new improvements to the animation process and this, in turn, helped the films become much more than Disney's computer generated films. When Disney themselves try their hands on these type of animation it is obvious whose is the more superior: Pixar.
But sadly Pixar have had a fall - not a giant, catastrophic fall, as their "masters" Disney, mind, but a fall none the less. "Cars" was, in my opinion, surprisingly sub-par, a 6/10 effort. I hoped that "Ratatouille", directed by Brad Bird, who created my favourite and I think best of all the Pixar films, "The Incredibles", could pull Pixar back out of this rut.
Sadly, this film is only slightly better than its predecessor. Though there are obviously some very clever minds at work on this story, it still seems a lot like a kid's movie rather than a family movie. That's not to say it was particularly bad - I enjoyed it a lot. But I guess I was expecting something more original than the classic "don't look at the book's cover" morale.
The visuals are great, as always, and there are some amazing characters in the film, particularly Anton Ego the food critic, played brilliantly by Peter O'Toole. Yet I was still left yearning for the scope of "Finding Nemo" or the originality of "The Incredibles" or the humour of "Toy Story 2". Good, but not great; a step in the right direction, though.
7/10