by kellie abrahamson kabrahamson1@aol.com
A+ Rated G 110 min.
The thought of rats in the kitchen is enough to make you lose your appetite. But, somehow, Pixar makes the sickening scenario deliciously appealing in their latest animated tour-de-force Ratatouille, which opens this week.
Auguste Gusteau (Brad Garrett) is the Emeril of France. Years of owning and operating Paris’ only five-star restaurant have catapulted him into the limelight, making the chef a worldwide celebrity. Soon after releasing his best-selling cookbook, Anyone Can Cook, Gusteau earns the disdain of snooty food critic Anton Ego (Peter O’Toole), who visits the restaurant and gives it an unfavorable review, causing it to lose a star. Soon after, Gusteau dies, many say because of Ego’s brutal criticism, and according to French tradition the restaurant loses another star when the chef dies. With the head chef gone, the once grand example of French cuisine is relegated to a tourist trap.
Our story actually begins a couple years later with Remy (Patton Oswalt), a lowly rat. We soon find, however, that our hero is not your average rat. Blessed with a superior sense of smell and a delicate palette, Remy is put off by the garbage his family eats and searches for the good food found in human homes. During his trips to the kitchen, Remy learns about cooking from reruns of Gusteau’s television show and his famous cookbook. But before he gets a chance to shine in the kitchen, the culinary party is cut short when the owner of the home Remy and his family lives in discovers the hundred-or-so unwanted guests. In the scuffle, the aspiring chef is swept down a sewer and separated from his family. When he finally makes it above ground, Remy finds that he’s unknowingly lived minutes away from Paris, France, home of the greatest food in the world.
As fate would have it, Remy ends up in Gusteau’s restaurant where he meets a lonely garbage boy named Linguini (Lou Romano). After spilling a pot of soup on his first day, Linguini tries to fix it before anyone notices to avoid losing his job. The result is disastrous and Remy can’t stop himself from fixing the brew, a sight that causes Linguini to do a double-take. When the change in the soup is discovered and adored by the customers, Linguini gets the credit and a promotion. This is, of course, a problem since the young man can barely boil water. Linguini is desperate to keep his job and Remy is itching to cook, so the two secretly join forces, wowing customers and critics with their food. Linguini’s success in the kitchen raises the eyebrow of the restaurant’s executive chef, Skinner (Ian Holm), who worries the newcomer may be a threat to his position. The renewed buzz about the restaurant also catches the attention of Anton Ego, who is sure the meals people are raving about are sub-par at best. Remy and Linguini must get past these two formidable obstacles if they want to make their dreams of culinary glory a reality.
Ratatouille is hands down the best Pixar film since the Toy Story movies. Both hilarious and heartwarming at the same time, the story never fails to hold the attention of movie-goers young and old. This is the kind of film parents will take their kids to see and then want to hire a babysitter so they can go back and see it all over again without the little ones in tow. Brad Bird mentioned in a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly that kids are just 10 percent of the audience he’s making movies for and it shows with Ratatouille. The humor is perfectly suited for families, with jokes and gags that will keep parents laughing but won’t alienate kids with overly “adult” innuendos.
That’s not to say that the kids won’t get a kick out of this rat-infested film too. There’s plenty of silly wordplay and slapstick to keep them happy. I’m sure it goes without saying that the animation was great, but some scenes actually had me gasping at the sight of them. When Remy takes his trip through the sewer, the water was so incredibly realistic my mouth literally dropped. The backgrounds are also wonderfully drawn, capturing the essence and beauty of “The City of Light” perfectly.
I’ve seen all of Pixar’s previous films and have liked every one, but Ratatouille blows Nemo out of the water. It scares up more laughs than Monsters Inc and it runs circles around Cars. Pixar’s got a new hit on their hands and it’s delicious.
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EU Critic’s Choice Awards
