MOVIES
It's about a rat named Remy, who lives in Paris. Unlike the rest of his scavenger clan, Remy has developed a taste for good food, and he's inspired by a late popular chef named Gusteau, who declares in his bestseller that "anyone can cook." Through a complex series of events, Remy ends up at Gusteau's restaurant, now run by a malicious and tyrannical little chef named Skinner. Enter a foolish young man named Linguini who gets a job as garbage boy in the restaurant, but accidentally creates a masterpiece of a soup with the secret help of Remy. The rat goes into partnership with the boy, hiding under his chef's hat while making it appear that the foolish human is doing the cooking.
You should never look for plausibility from a cartoon, and Bird knows that. The story simply takes the incongruous character of a rat, an animal that usually inspires disgust; puts him in a restaurant, a place where you never want to see a rat; and combines this with the theme of great food, brilliant chefs, and the love of cooking. Although the situations sometimes slip from the clever to the merely silly, the animation is fantastic throughout. Best of all are the scurrying rats—the rapid movement through twisting and turning landscapes from a rodent's point of view is nothing short of breathtaking. And the appreciation for fine food is conveyed with an inexhaustible sense of humor—the title Ratatouille refers of course to a certain peasant dish while playing on the word "rat," and this is just an example of how good-natured the film can be. But there's none of that smirky winking at the audience that mars so many mainstream children's films these days. It's presented in all earnest. The voices are generally fine— Ian Holm steals the movie as the little chef who terrorizes everyone that works for him. The rats have American accents while the humans have French ones, except for a food critic played by the unmistakably English Peter O'Toole.
Like all Pixar movies, it's flashy and sometimes loud, but it's also the smartest and kindest animated film you could ask for. Ratatouille is a fun summer diversion.
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