REVIEW - Ratatouille (2007)

Everyone loves Pixar right?  They make beautifully animated films full of warmth and intelligence and a slyness of wit that makes them completely irresistible to adults and children alike.  Up until a few months ago I would have entirely agreed with this sentiment; there are a few areas of the media to which my relentless cynicism does not apply but Pixar’s films and Oliver Postgate’s old TV shows were well within that protective enclave.  That was until I saw Cars.  Initially well received, the first Pixar film put out after the Disney buy-out of the company, Cars has now settled down to a warmish critical response... a decent 76% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes and 73/100 on Metacritic.  Good but not exactly world-changing.  A rare lapse in form.

To hear the response to Ratatouille, you would think that this film was a triumphant return to the kind of film-making that made Pixar famous.  At time of writing, the film boasts an astonishing 97% Fresh rating and a 96/100 rating on Metacritic.  In fact, seeing as the film has been out for a while in America, Rotten Tomatoes only lists six negative reviews out of nearly 200.  IMDb also lists it as the 78th best film ever made, beating films like The Big Sleep, Jaws and Full Metal Jacket.  To put it simply, this is a film that is loved.  It is also absolute and utter drivel and one of the most cynical, dishonest and poorly written films that I have seen at the cinema in recent time.  It is dreadful.

Remy is a rat who lives, with the rest of his clan, in the French countryside.  He is gifted with an extraordinary sense of taste and quickly comes to realise that he cares about what he eats, unlike his father who considers food nothing more than fuel.  This belief pushes Remy to start investigating a nearby kitchen where he discovers proper human food and the teachings of Gusteau, the famed 5-star Parisian Chef.  One day, Remy’s clan are discovered and, in the chaos, Remy becomes separated from his clan forcing him to try and survive in the heart of Paris.  Fortuitously, he finds himself at Gusteau’s old restaurant, now run by his diminutive former assistant who seems intent on cashing in on the Gusteau name in order to make a quick Euro.  Remy soon teams up with witless garbage boy and unknowing son of Gusteau Linguini who cooks Remy’s dishes thanks to Remy working him like a puppet by pulling on his hair.  Before long, the two are the toast of Paris and the team have to deal with issues such as Linguini pushing his small ratty friend to one side in order to be with his girlfriend, Remy increasingly wanting credit for his work and Remy’s clan turning up and wanting food.

This all comes to a head when France’s leading food critic turns up on the same night as Remy has stormed off.  Incapable of coping, Linguini turns to the rat for help and admits in front of his staff that it was the rat doing the cooking, prompting the entire staff to work out.  This leaves Remy and the rats to do all the cooking by themselves, winning over the jaded critic but at the cost of the health inspector closing the restaurant down due to its catastrophic infestation of rats.  However, using the won-over critic’s money, the team open up a new restaurant where Remy cooks, Linguini waits tables and Remy’s family get to discover the joys of fine food and human friendship.

Sounds nice doesn’t it?

Well it is... until you start to think about it.

Pixar’s success in appealing to adult and children alike has long been built upon two firm pillars.  Firstly, artistic and technical expertise producing animation of a quality unparalleled in the rest of Western animation.  Secondly, screenplays based on universal themes presented in a heart-warming sentimental style but with enough wit and sly humour to prevent the entire thing from becoming facile, cloying and saccharine.

Ratatouille easily passes the first test as the visuals and the animation are amazing throughout.  The backdrops are frequently photo-realistic as are the shots including water and I suspect that the figures would be too if Brad Bird were not wise enough to realise that photo-realistic humans tend to fall into the uncanny valley.  The direction is also excellent with a camera that swoops, pivots and twirls effortlessly.  Ratatouille is undeniably a beautiful film to look at.  The problem is that just as amazing special effects do not transform a summer blockbuster into a great film, great animation does not (or at least should not) make for a great animated film.

Where Ratatouille fails is in the writing department.  It fails spectacularly.  Epically.

Pixar’s previous films have worked because they ultimately tell very simple stories. Toy Story is about friendship and jealousy, Finding Nemo is about fatherly love and Monsters Inc is about emotion and morality overcoming received opinion.  Ratatouille, on the other hand is about... um...

It’s important to be oneself and to be different from one’s family and if one’s family is holding one back then one has to move forward but without forgetting one’s family because they define who we are, except when they don’t in which case you shouldn’t hate your family, except when they’re holding you back.  It’s also about how anyone can cook but not everyone, well not everyone can cook really well... or at all for that matter but you shouldn’t judge a person’s ability to cook based upon their appearances... except when they’re short and evil.  Also humans should be kind to rats because rats can be helpful, except when they’re not but even then you should be kind to rats... why? fucked if I know because they’re vermin... except when they can  cook but even when they can’t.

If that paragraph makes no sense it is because Ratatouille makes no sense.  Rather than ground the film is a simple message or a simple easily recognisable dramatic truth, Ratatouille is a maze of unclear and frequently  contradictory morals that all fight for screen time, all have an effect upon the plot but all fail to make anything even approaching a coherent story.  As a result, Ratatouille is a film built upon shifting sands.  A fact that Brad Bird attempts to solve by liberally applying schmaltz and sentimentality despite not even coming close to explaining where any of this sentiment comes from.  This introduces the second problem with Ratatouille.

This film simply is not funny; the characters are far too serious for them to produce laughs simply by interacting with each other.  This means that the film turns to fairly obvious “comedy characters” as a means of getting laughs.  However, rather than these characters relying upon good comedy concepts, they instead rely upon their physical characteristics to generate laughs.  For example, one character is a dwarf chef who scuttles about the place, using a step ladder to get up to the pans and taste the food.  Short people = funny according to Ratatouille.  Another character is a fat rat who falls over a lot.  Fat people = funny according to Ratatouille.  None of this is inherently disastrous, it just means that the film cannot be a “character comedy”.  It needs to rely upon pratfalls and verbal humour to get the laughs.  The problem is that the film is almost entirely lacking in verbal humour.  Despite seeing the film less than twelve hours previous to writing this review, I genuinely struggle to think of a single line of dialogue that made me laugh.  Without good characters or good dialogue the film is therefore reliant upon its visual humour to generate laughs but again, there are few genuinely funny moments of visual humour aside from the rats being struck by lightening and being cleaned in a dishwasher and, in both situations, coming out with their fur all fuzzy.  Instead we see lavish set pieces which, while not actually funny, raise a smile simply because they’re really well made.  This is what ultimately kills the film.

Ratatouille is a film that ultimately rests entirely upon its technical prowess.  Lacking a decent script, a decent plot or interesting characters it tends to rely upon big animated set pieces to get itself out of trouble.  The result is that there is a big chase scene every twenty minutes or so, every time the film’s plot runs into trouble.  Want Remy to get to the restaurant?  chase scene.  Want Remy to make friends with Linguini?  chase scene.  Want Remy to get back in with Linguini after falling out with him?  chase scene.  Want Remy to produce food for the critic?  rats everywhere!  Again and again this film uses its artistic expertise as a means of getting itself out of trouble and papering over the cracks of an utterly sub-par script.  But worse than all of this, the film is deeply boring.  At close to two hours, the film feels at least half an hour too long, due to it attempting in vain to meld all of the various plot-lines and dramatic arcs into a problem that can be solved by a load of rats cooking in a restaurant.

Ratatouille is a film that places Disney firmly back in the position that it was in in the early 90’s, turning out pretty stories that lacked wit, intelligence and proper drama.  The film is easily as earnest as anything produced by Disney prior to Aladdin and as a result is a real throwback in terms of the quality of the scriptwriting.

One of the reasons why Ratatouille’s plot is so confused is that Remy has to juggle a host of different, and frequently incompatible, metrics of personal flourishing.  This means that in order for Remy to “succeed in life" he has to become a great cook, become independent, become loved by his family, become accepted by humans, stay hidden from humans and appeal to a critic.  Appealing to the critic has no further plot repercussions as the restaurant is closed immediately after the critic writes his review.  The idea of Remy needing to please a critic also clashes violently with the idea that he needs to be independent and be himself and do what he wants to do.  If the entire critic sub-plot were cut you would have a less confused, more tightly plotted film.  So why is it in there?

Hollywood has a pretty clear view of critics.  By and large we’re a self-serving, bitter, cynical cadre of jealous failures who can’t get over the fact that other people are being creative while we merely react.  Obviously, this is utterly misguided, criticism is not entirely about reacting passively to the work of others, it is about self-expression and interpretation and it is as much a medium in its own right as any other form of writing be it novels or for the screen.  However, Hollywood’s view of criticism has a good deal of currency.  Indeed, it has such currency that to encounter a film that sees the good in a critic’s work is a downright shock.  Particularly when this praise is delivered in a lovely speech by Peter O’Toole.  As a critic it’s difficult to not feel a positive glow when hearing this speech and it’s so close to the end that it’s quite possible to walk out of Ratatouille with that warm glow still melting the ice around one’s critical heart.

So, (A) we have a plot-line that doesn’t need to be there and which actually muddies the water by making the film more complicated than it needs to be. (B) We also have an idiosyncratic view of critics that is remarkably and heart-warmingly positive.  Finally, (C) we have a film with obvious flaws whose reviews have been 97% positive.

If you ask me, A + B = C.

Critics have been hornswaggled by a bit of emotional manipulation aimed only at them.

Perhaps if Pixar made a little more effort with its scripts and a little less effort in pre-empting their critical response they’d start producing decent films again.  This is one studio whose reserves of good will are running perilously dry for this particular critic.

Comments

[Shane]

At its bare bones I see Ratatoullie as a 'buddy' flick. The unlikely friendship between rat and garbage boy. It suffers from the exposition that surrounds the way that rat and garbage boy meet (why is the rat eating the good stuff in Paris, etc). Because that exposition is so long it is really hard to realise what it is that the film is about.
So you're right, it's a poor effort at writing. But it is easily definable as a film... it just contains a lot of chaff.

Oh, and Hi. First time I've visited and read. Followed your link in your sig from rpg.net.

[Jonathan McCalmont]

Hi Shane, thanks for dropping by :-)

I think you're right, it is a buddy movie albeit one that is utterly hamstrung by the fact that a) the two buddies can't really interact all that much seeing as they don't speak the same language, b) there's also a lot of other conflicting stuff about self-actualisation that distracts from that central relationship.

It's just... all over the place really.

[Shane]

Oh I agree, as a film it's rather weak and weakened more by just... well... stuff happenning. Stuff that's not important and detracts from what's going on at the core of things.

Still, the kids loved it and are wanting it on DVD. So I'll have to make the grand sacrifice and get it for them so I get to endure it over and over again on those Saturdays and Sundays when the weather isn't quite so clement.

[Jonathan McCalmont]

Dude, you so need to get into the habit of ranting about your children's taste in films. You should lecture them at great length and chase them from the room with a stick when you discover them watching something you don't approve of :-)

[Shane]

The problem then is that they'll pick up something that I DO approve of, and if Korean Horror is your thing (and it rates just above the treasured Zombie film for me), then having an 8-yr-old and a 3-yr-old exposed to the viscera of Korea isn't going to win me any brownie points with wifey.

Ranting aside (which I do plenty of anyway), my daughter is already mad-keen on watching horror - which at 8 she's not allowed to do just yet. Although I've recently introduced her to 'The War of the Worlds' via the concert DVD (the one with the big giant head). She loves the music and singing (it's kinda like 'High School Musical', she tells me). And has to get me to explain what it means when the martians are taking the blood of the captives and injecting it into their own veins. She's fascinated by this.

I think I have a wee goth in the making.

[Jonathan McCalmont]

Children are a blood-thirsty lot. If you think of the Roald Dahl stories, they're all about kids being sucked into industrial machines and locked in cupboards and generally being mistreated. Here is the UK there's a series of history books aimed at kids that emphasises the more sensationalist aspects of history... I have one called "The Vicious Vikings" or something like that.

I seem to remember I was 8 when I first saw the original terminator. I could handle the violence, was a bit confused by the sex ("Oh no... not MORE kissing!") and horrified my mother when I walked up to her and said "Fuck you asshole!" in a heavy Germanic accent.

So I'd say your daughter sounds like a perfectly normal 8 year old :-)

[Shane]

Bah, my mum wouldn't even let me go see Aliens at the cinema, even though I was fascinated with the magazines released around the same time that showed pictures of Bishop, torn in half, holding Newt... :/

[Ｐｅｒｐｅｔｕａ]

For all the reasons you mention, it is indeed hard for rats to succeed in life. I recommend "Firmin" by Sam Savage, a cynical and hilarious rat's tale guaranteed to take away the aftertaste of "Ratatouille."

[Jonathan McCalmont]

Thank you for the recommendation :-) the only other book about rats that I'm familiar with is Camus' The Plague and I think that's supposed to be about the Nazi occupation of France. It's also nowhere near as much fun as L'Etranger.

[Vanessa]

The movie is about the search for identity. It is a contradictory struggle, and one that is not neat and wrapped up in a little bow. So the movie might not be hilarious, but it is endearing, human if you will...and Pixar is not a company defined as humor-based only but rather as great story tellers.

This is a great story about following your dreams against the odds to rise to the top your field, which is represented by a rave review from a food critic...Anton Ego. He is more than just a critic, he is a knowledgeable expert who knows great from ok... it is not about pleasing him but being the best at doing what you love thus establishing your identity.

I don't know this review seems biased because the critic who wrote it didn't like that speech at the end. Or perhaps it is as Anton Ego says in his speech about critics: We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read.

[Jonathan M]

Hi Vanessa, thanks for popping by :-)

That thing you call "bias"? that's opinion, which is all a review ever is. It just so happens that my opinion is correct.

[Vanessa]

Ha ha OK you are right...in your opinion of course.