Very, very good... but...

Rating: 8/10 (30 June 2007)

I love Pixar. As a studio they have created a new form of cinema that grows and evolves with every new film they make. In fact, I'd say that if I had the chance to work for any company in the world, Pixar would be it, even if it was just to empty the trash.
What I've admired most about Pixar movies is that story has always been of the utmost importance; technology has always been used to serve the story, not the other way around.
Being the Pixar fan that I am, I was looking forward to RATATOUILLE, particularly since director Brad Bird did such a wonderful job with THE INCREDIBLES, and I'm sort of a sucker for "follow your dream" stories to begin with. The idea of a rat who dreams of cooking in a Paris restaurant sounded just goofy enough to work.
On a lot of levels, RATATOUILLE does work. Bird was clearly ambitious here, with an obvious affection for food, Paris, and good restaurants. The kitchen he renders here is beautifully detailed and Bird even manages to sneak in a little tour that faithfully describes the various positions. Visually, there is a lovely warmth to this movie; who could have foreseen 10 years ago that CG animation could do justice to the City of Light?
The weakness here is in the story. And it's not that the story is bad--it's orders of magnitude better than, say, SHREK THE THIRD--just not strong enough to support director Bird's ambitions. There is little real sense of peril here, and the characters aren't terribly well-developed.
I enjoyed RATATOUILLE, even admired much of it, but Pixar needs to sharpen its story skills if it wants to stay at the top of the heap.