Review 32: Ratatouillie

Ratatouille is a delicious offering from Pixar and an absolute childhood favourite of mine,

Remy (Pattob Oswald) is a rat who has a taste for well made food and dreams of becoming a chef, his inspiration being the recently-deceased chef Auguste Gusteau (Brad Garrett).
When Remy and his family are separated Remy ends up in Paris where he enters one of Gusteau's resturaunts and cooks and the credit goes to a new garbage boy named Linguini (Lou Ramano), and the mean boss Skinner (Ian Holm) sees the rat and orders Linguini to kill it, but Linguini and Remy agree to help each other. So with Remy guided by hallucinations of Gusteau and Linguini by Colette Tatou (Janeane Garofalo), the staff's only female chef the duo set out to become the greatest chefs in Paris.

The plot is so delicious it makes you hungry even when your watching it. Don’t watch this film on an empty stomach. It is a love letter to the French cooking industry with a sweet, heartwarming and uplifting moral at its centre.

Determination and following your dreams:

The friendship and comradely between Linguini and Remy is also an emotionally poignant subtext

Director Brad Bird's animation direction is brilliant, the animation is splendid, the score by Michael Giacchino is beautiful. The use of percussion, strings and Accordions perfectly evokes the romance and elegance of Paris. The humor is hysterical, the scenes with Remy in the kitchen feature some brilliantly clever visual gags using kitchen equipment such ladles and pots. The French setting is marvelous. the production design is fantastic and captures the beauty and flare of Paris (I even have relatives in Paris), the character design is fantastic and rich with detail, the sound is tremendous, there are some great moments of intensity and

The voice acting was excellent, Patton Oswald is very likeable as Remy, infecting a creature we usually associate with disease and sickness with charisma, hopefulness, optimism, persistence and resilience  who pursues his dreams and passions with steadfast resolve.

Lou Ramano is honest as Linguini,

Janeane Garofalo is just bonkers playing Colette Tatou

Brad Garrett is a hoot playing Gusteau,

Ian Holm makes for a scary villain playing Chef Skinner

Peter O’Toole is equally menacing as food critic Anton

and the rest of the cast is excellent.

Ratatouille is a tastefully told story that is exquisitely told and prepared by Pixar, 5/5.

The Anonymous Critic