Ratatouille

by Scott

There is a particularly excellent sequence early on in Ratatouille that not only sets the film high above the mindless computer animated movies being churned out by other Pixar wannabes, but also makes for great cinema in general. The rat protagonist Remy (voiced by Patton Oswalt) has just been separated from his family and friends via a massive sewer tunnel while trying to escape a shotgun wielding old lady. From the sewer, he finds himself moving through various pipes and up into the walls of an apartment building. As he frantically runs forward, we are treated to numerous Rear Window-esque snippets of funny "scenes" going on in some of the rooms. Eventually, Remy makes his way up some more piping, out onto the roof, and up to its peak to reveal the gorgeous nighttime Paris skyline. It's one of the most effective inciting incidents to get the hero to where he needs to be that I've seen in a long time. It's smart, compelling, and just downright fun. Which is what can be said for pretty much all of Ratatouille, the latest feature from Pixar and director Brad Bird (The Incredibles).

Remy dreams of becoming a renowned chef, just like his idol Gusteau (who appears in ghost form, voiced by Brad Garrett), deceased author of a book entitled "Anyone Can Cook" and former chef of his own restaurant, which now only has 3 stars instead of 5. Gusteau's famous name is also being sold out and commercialized by his successor, Skinner (Ian Holm), the new head chef and an especially hilarious character. Of course, Gusteau was an actual human being, and Remy is a rat. Just a minor little obstacle to overcome, but Remy truly believes that humans aren't as nasty and evil towards his kind as they are made out to be, and he can find a way to co-exist with them. After making his way into the kitchen at Gusteau's, he is caught (in another wonderful sequence) by a young worker named Linguini, but not before finding a way to spice up the soup, which elicits a positive reaction from a customer. Skinner winds up thinking that Linguini made the soup, and expects him to keep it up. When asked to dispose of Remy, Linguini keeps him instead, believing that he can use Remy to keep getting credit for the cooking, while Remy in turn uses Linguini to fulfill his own goals – wackiness ensues.

The way that Remy and Linguini wind up communicating with each other is, to say the least, unusual and absurd, but it makes for many humorous moments. And besides, if you already believe in a rat that can cook and take time to remind yourself that you're watching an animated Pixar movie, suspending your disbelief shouldn't be that hard. Like most Pixar films, we are once again presented with something that can talk which shouldn't be able to talk. However, it is established early on that even though the rats can talk amongst each other, to the ears of a human their voices still just sound like the annoying little squeaky noises that are commonly associated with rats. This provides another obstacle for Remy and Linguini to overcome in their cooking, but also further heightens the difficulty of Remy's task. And you have to give the filmmakers credit for not taking the easy way out and pulling the ol' "oh, I can talk, but I'm only going to talk to you and then disappear when everyone else is around." The dynamic between the two characters winds up benefiting from this, and it makes the writing much stronger.

Overall, the voice work is top notch. Patton Oswalt, who is known to me for his extremely raunchy and hysterical stand up comedy, actually winds up fitting Remy perfectly. He infuses the leading role with the right amount of geeky passion, and his knack for landing a good joke certainly doesn't hurt as well. Ian Holm does nice work as the head chef Skinner, but most of the greatness of that role comes from the overall appearance and animations of the character. One of the standouts is Peter O'Toole, as feared food critic Anton Ego, a gangly man with a coffin-shaped office, who holds the fate of the restaurant (and Remy & Linguini) in his next review. There is also solid work from Brian Dennehy, Brad Garrett, Janeane Garofalo, and Will Arnett. The latter three are almost completely unrecognizable, yet still very effective.

As expected, the animation is breathtaking, and the team of animators does as excellent of a job at capturing the glory of Paris as the filmmakers of the live action Paris, je t'aime. But with technology advanced to the point it is at now, a film like this needs more than fancy visuals to impress. The real MVP here is Brad Bird, who is more or less batting 1,000 (sorry for the cliché sports metaphors) after this, The Incredibles, and The Iron Giant. Though the film was obviously made by a team of thousands, it's hard to deny that there is a singular guiding vision coming from Bird. He might be doing animated films, but he's probably just as good as any modern American filmmaker working today.