Rats, what a let down.

Rating: 5/10 (27 September 2007)

Pixar are the computer boffins behind such great films as 'Toy Story', 'Finding Nemo' and 'The Incredible's' so it is with excitement I look forward to watching their new film 'Ratatouille', but I have to say that I was thoroughly disappointed. The idea is basically about a rat who longs to be one of the greatest chef's in the world, lucky then that he lives under Paris, unlucky that he is a rat. Basically that's it, there are no really cool characters like the turtles in 'Nemo' or the aliens in 'Toy Story', there is his unbelieving dad, fat brother, bumbling chef accomplice who are all quite unassuming the only one with anything to them is the evil head chef who runs the kitchen with an iron fist. There is none of the magic that made earlier films so appealing for young and old and the jokes are thin and far between or have been done before. I think the whole thing is let down by the idea, it just isn't as strong as previous outings. There's a loose theme of humans hating rats as they are pests but it never really gets of the ground and a kitchen doesn't really allow for many action sequences. The animation is as you'd expect flawless and the rats (despite being pests) are all fluffy cute so the kids will probably love them but all in all this is probably the worst film to come from the Pixar stable, which considering past achievements and their normal level of originality ends up being a bit more of a let down.