Merely Average

Rating: 6/10 (24 July 2007)

Ratatouille is a decent movie. It does not, however, live up to the excellence we have come to expect from Pixar. This was a movie on rails - the sugar-coated Pixar story that we have come to love, but without the originality that makes it so great.
At the risk of sounding like a geek, I should say that Pixar movies have to deliver technologically. We live in a world of computer-animated films. It is not sufficient for Pixar's technology to be "good", it must push the boundaries of what is possible. In Monsters Inc., it was fur. In Nemo, it was water. In The Incredibles, it was cloth. Ratatouille didn't push the boundaries. Yes, it looked great. But so did Cars, Over the Hedge, Happy Feet, and Shrek 3. Perhaps we are reaching a plateau where everything that can be improved already has been. But the spark is gone. Pixar no longer stands out as the leader in computer animation.
So, what else makes Pixar movies so great? Voice acting. Who didn't love Hanks in Toy Story, Spacey in A Bug's Life, Goodman/Crystal in Monsters, DeGeneres in Nemo, Hunter/Jackson in The Incredibles, or Wilson in Cars? Great voice actors bring personality to the movie. They, more than anything else, define the presence of the characters. Excluding Peter O'Toole's excellent performance as Ego, the acting was merely average in Ratatouille. Both Over the Hedge and Shrek 3 had better voice acting, as has every previous Pixar movie. Lou Romano's Linguini character was the stereotypical shell-shocked teenager, a voice that I've unfortunately endured in countless other films. Patton Oswalt's Remy had more personality, but it still lacked the impact that defined previous Pixar characters. The voice acting in Ratatouille wasn't bad, but, excluding Peter O'Toole, it wasn't outstanding either.
So, what do we have left? The story. Pixar is, and has always been, about great storytelling. Ratatouille, unfortunately, is a letdown in this regard. It plays out more like a Disney picture than a Pixar picture. Linguini begins the story unable to cook, and, at the end, he still can't cook. I guess that "anyone can cook" doesn't apply to shell-shocked teenagers. Where's the lesson that we're supposed to take away? Where's the danger? Every other Pixar film connects us to the characters by putting them in peril. Remember the door scene in The Incredibles? Or the rocket scene in Toy Story? Or the angler fish in Nemo? There is no risk in Ratatouille. Remy is put in danger, but it is too brief for the emotion to sink in.
I'm not going to say that Ratatouille was a bad film. It wasn't. But it doesn't have the magic of a Pixar film. When a Dreamworks film, Over the Hedge, looks just as good and has better voice acting, what does it mean for Pixar? It means that they are losing their edge. Pixar is becoming more like the rest of Disney - merely average.