"Ratatouille" (2007) - Movie Review

Watching an animated movie is always without pressure and sheer enjoyment. But there is catch to it. Even the worst animation could run well for some time but to really take the distance, it comes under the normal curvature of any movie. So either the creator plays it regularly and gets away with it or takes a risk to do something different. “Ratatoulle” is a proper three act film structure. It is typical and usual routine in the first two acts. It sets up properly, the creatures may be a little different with different interests but it heads to the underlining plot known. The second act also is comic in a familiar way. We smile but we know we have seen it previously. It keeps us heading towards and when it is decided the third act is a climax of open secret, we get it in a recipe of its own. It succeeds in taking the distance it needed to move it towards a radical curvature.

The creator and director Brad Bird sees novel and interesting things in the most unusual places. How can one think of rat aspiring to be a chef? Well, in Bird’s movie Remy (voice of Patton Oswalt) is not the regular dirty little thieves of foods every one knows and as it called as “rat”. He is a connoisseur of food mainly by his smell. He explores his nasal skills and its improvisation through peeking into a house under his colony. As the old lady in the house sleeps watching the TV, he gets his inspiration from a great cook from Paris, Gusteau (voice of Brad Garett) demonstrating in it. When his other buddies are digging deep inside garbage, Remy manipulating his elder brother Emile (voice of Peter Sohn), with his little small foods tries to cook. His father Django (voice of Brian Dennehy) thinks Remy is making it a safe environment for them because of his skill of smell, he know whether the food from garbage is “clean” or not. He believes it is not worth it to trust the humans and accept what they are, the rats. This does stop Remy and while hunting inside the house for saffron to season his new dish, along with realizing that his hero Gusteau is dead, the old lady discovers the colony. An escape from it separates him from his other rats. Tired and desolated, he starts talking with the deceased Gusteau through his imagination. He learns and realizes he is underneath the restaurant left by Gusteau.

And then he meets Linguini (voice of Lou Romano) and his inability to do anything properly. After Linguini is assigned the job to kill the intruder, Remy, he realizes that the rat can understand him. And more than that, later they both realize that Remy can control the actions of Linguini by pulling, turning and twisting his hair. This forms proper hideout with remote control operability over Linguini. Then the plot unfolds with jealousy, being what you are and how anything is possible.

The last act is its corner stone. I felt some uneasiness just before the start of the final thirty minutes. It seemed to be clichéd. True that the funny moments made me smile but it never made me to awe for it. The end and the way it is achieved with the lot of characters exhibiting an unexpected change of their views and judgments, this completes the last lap of the race in record breaking time. The story itself does not preach the “morals” at the end. It lets itself be open to the viewers. It speaks through the actions. Some of those applies to all grown ups as well. They do not also repeat the words of the Gusteau’s “Anyone can cook” every now and then. It is aware to them that it is a magic wand which needs to be spelled upon in so that it makes the proper sense to the screenplay.

In animated movies there is tendency to pull in all the characters at the finale and give them the task which does not suit them or in which they are not skillful enough. It is something the viewers are tuned upon to accept and hence not many creators justify those. Something like that happens out here too when the whole colony helps the team of Remy and Linguini. More than sense, it feels right. The way the characters are brought upon fits it without any over doing of the melodrama. The bond in between Linguini and Remy as such does not concentrate in depth. It grows on us as the film progresses at its ease. The uneasiness is the time when it is time to wrap it up. They wrap it well and good to make it one interesting proper text book three course dining experience.