Ratatouille - Review

By: Subhadeep Bhattacharjee
Tuesday, September 18, 2007

One of the must watch animation movies where Remy a young rat from the French countryside moves to Paris with the dream of becoming a great chef despite his family's opposition. Unlike his family members who could consume anything, Remy was born with a certain gift of scent and taste. In Paris Remy arrives at Gusteau"s, a world famous restaurant best known for its French cuisine. Auguste Gusteau was the greatest chef in the world and had written a book “Anyone Can Cook". Remy had taken inspiration from the book and thought of becoming a great chef one day.

Remy learns realities of life as to how rats are hated in the kitchen. There are at times when he is at the crossroads of whether to chase his dreams of go back to being a rat for ever. He meets the Linguini a restaurant's new garbage boy who at ones is impressed by Remy's cooking talent. Together they make an alliance and Linguini hides Remy below his chef's hat; from where Remy pulls on Linguini's hair directing him to create marvelous new dishes.

This transforms Linguini into the restaurant's new celebrity chef. However this is not liked by Chief Chef Skinner who became proprietor of Gusteau"s following Auguste Gusteau's death after a devastating newspaper review of the restaurant by the demon-like food critic, Anton Ego. Skinner wants to fail the new celebrity chef at any cost.

The movie stands out as a realistic animation and the director Brad Bird doesn't lie to his young audience.

The message is very simple and inspirational. He doesn't narrate to the audience that anything they dream is possible in fact the movie says “not everyone can become a great artist, but a great artist can come from anywhere". It also portrays one more social phenomenon where the underdogs are looked down upon by the society, here this is symbolized by a rat.

Many critics have appreciated this attempt and have said that even adult movies are not this direct in their message. The dialogue delivery on part of the voice artists is excellent especially that of Patton Oswalt who speaks for Remy and does a marvelous job. All the other voice artists Peter O' Toole, Ian Holm, Lou Ramano deliver good performances.

The plot is very energetic and the characters are very detailed which is not surprising as the movie is a product of Pixar Animation Studios which has given us fabulous animations movies like the Toy Story, Cars and when the banner of Walt Disney is added it becomes a benchmark of quality. The movie is a splendid piece of art, and is a must watch for those who may not even like animation movies.

Movie Name – Ratatouille
Genre – Animation
Year – 2007
Director – Brad Bird and Jan Pinkava (co-director)
Voices - Patton Oswalt, Brian Dennehy, Brad Garrett, Janeane Garofalo, Ian Holm, Peter O" Toole, Lou Ramano
Country- USA