FIVE MONTHS BETWEEN POSTS!!! sorry everyone. I've been a little busy moving to another state and job hunting and what not. Anyway, on with the countdown....
I love Pixar, I love Patton Oswalt, I love food, I love cooking. So why isn't Ratatouille one of my favorite movies of all time? I should love this movie, but I only like it. This movie has moments of greatness to be sure, Ego's review at the end is one of my favorite descriptions of criticism ever. But I do disagree a little that negative criticism is fun to read and write. It is fun to read and write when a movie is a bloated hollywood mess directed by Michael Bay or George Lucas, but I take little joy from having to eviscerate Cars 2 or Pinnochio. It's not fun to be negative about something you wanted to love. I'd always rather be raving about something unique that needs to be defended.
This goes back to my problems with Ratatouille. It is a unique story, and I love the message that while not every one is great, true greatness can come from anywhere. I sometimes feel that this is the message we've been trying to teach kids all along. You know, before we started giving participation ribbons for everything. Pixar movies tend to have several variations on this theme and I quite like it. It is a reminder that greatness is something everyone should strive for, even if we don't all achieve it.
What Pixar doesn't do very well here is show the amount of work it take to be great. All of Remy's problems with being a cook have to do with being a rat. Yes, that's a huge obstacle for our hero, but his genius as a cook never seems earned. It's almost like starting Star Wars with Anikin Skywalker already being good at everything he does, except people don't like him so life is hard. That is a harsh example, and Phantom Menace isn't in the same league as Ratatouille, but I believe they share a problem of having a protagonist who is too skilled to be truly interesting. We never see Remy fail at cooking, and I think the movie suffers for it. I wish we could have one moment where Remy fails at the thing he is truly great at. I want him to have a new recipe turn out badly. It happens to everyone who loves to cook. In fact, every good cook I know has done this, and it makes them better. Even Remy's hero Gusteau has a bad recipe that needs to be fixed. By not having Remy ever make a cooking error, it sucks a lot of tension out of the film.
Everything hinges on how to get a rat to cook in a French kitchen. Again, huge obstacle for our hero, but our hero is already an anthropomorphic rat with super cooking powers. If you suspend your disbelief that far, there's no doubt he'll succeed if he gets the chance. And we know he'll get the chance. Even with all the obstacles put in front of him, movie watching has taught us that the hero will always get a chance to square off against the villain. Rocky isn't about if he'll get to fight Apollo Creed. We know he will, that's why we are watching. We want to see if he can win. Spiderman will fight Dr. Octopus, The Incredibles will face Syndrome, etc, etc, etc. We never get a moment to feel like Remy can't beat Anton Ego. All those moments are given to Linguini, which is a shame because he is more or less a plot device. He is the tool Remy uses to succeed and I don't care much about the feelings and doubts of a tool. Linguini isn't a substantial enough character to carry the weight of the movie. His arc is this: clumsy boy becomes friends with rat who can work him like a puppet by pulling his hair, he learns to become confident in himself, and learns he is a good waiter by the end. That's it! the journey from dishwasher to waiter is not interesting. None of his other fame and success is his doing. So what we have is Remy and Linguini sharing the role of hero. Remy has all the talent, but none of the being human necessary to succeed, and Linguini has none of the talent and all of the (fully justified) self doubt. Neither of them are complete enough characters for us to get behind.
With all that said, I still find the movie charming. The animation is gorgeous, the side characters are fun, Peter O'T0oole's Villainous food critic is brilliant, and the sound is great. The highlight of the movie for me is the moment when Collette shows Linguini how to find good bread. The crackle of the bread makes my mouth water every single time and I'm tempted to just turn the movie off and go eat a whole loaf of french bread. I wish the movie had more moments like that. Instead we get good soup (which is too vague in description to be interesting) and ratatouille (which does look delicious). For a movie about cooking, it's sadly lacking in culinary money shots.
All in all Ratatouille is a likeable movie, but it never reaches the levels of greatness that it seeks to celebrate.
6/10
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