Dir. Brad Bird, US, 2007, 111 mins
Cast: Patton Oswalt, Ian Holm, Peter O'Toole, Janeane Garofalo
Review by Carol Allen
The makers of another animated comedy Flushed Away had problems making their rat hero attractive to audiences, to the extent that in some areas of the world they pretended he was a mouse! The leading character in this, howeve,r although a sewer rat is a very cuddly and likeable little creature with soft looking blue fur and aspirations. Remy (Oswalt) is a rat with taste - literally. With his delicate taste buds and sense of smell he has a talent for combining the food he and his fellows scavenge in the sewers into delicious dishes. An accident of movie plot circumstance separates him from his Mafia style rat family, and he ends up in the kitchen of a five star Paris restaurant. With the guidance of the ghost of his hero, deceased tv chef Gusteau, who was the founder of the restaurant and using the inept kitchen hand Linguini (Lou Romano) as his sous chef to carry out his culinary visions, Remy becomes the top - albeit secret - chef of Paris .
It's a good story, witty and original, while the animation is both skilful and imaginative and at times breathtakingly beautiful. There are some really memorable sequences, such as Remy's rat's eye view of the kitchen when he first arrives there – all scary big feet, knives and other hazards which could easily extinguish a tiny rodent, and which is reminiscent of a similar scene. when the young heroes of Roald Dahl's The Witches are turned into mice. While another scene later in the film, when Remy's family rat pack overrun the kitchen and prepare a gourmet meal en masse is a delight of skilful animation and comedy. Brian Dennehy lends his authoritative tones to the role of Remy's dad, Godfather of the clan and O'Toole turns his rich English vowels and fruity tones to the role of the sour faced restaurant critic Ego.
While the slapstick of Linguini's ineptitudes is a bit irritating for adults, kids will probably love him and the film as a whole, being far more sophisticated than most of Pixar's previous offerings, has plenty of other things for adults to enjoy, such as the satire embodied in Skinner (Holm) the current chef, who is spitting on Gusteau's grave by planning to introduce the fast food culture to the restaurant. The use of accents is somewhat inconsistent, in that the feisty female chef Colette (Garofalo), the ghost of Gusteau (a full blooded performance from Brad Garrett) and Skinner are all heavily French, while the Mafia rat pack are mainly American. That is though but a quibble with a delightful film, which is packed with laughs and although long for an animated movie, never flags. It's also a bit of a foodie fest, in that whoever drew the food should be designing ads for restaurants. It all looks delicious – though personally, when Remy finally creates the ratatouille of the title, I could have done with a bigger helping, in that it's all a bit cuisine minceur!
|
