Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Ratatouille

This was one of the best-reviewed movies of 2007, right? I thought it was okay. Loved the animation, but the story about the rat becoming a great chef wasn't all that great. The pleas for rat tolerance were a little heavy-handed, too, but I've resolved to be kinder to rats in the future. While there were some funny moments, there weren't any laugh-out-loud bits, or at least not for me. A pleasant little movie, I thought, even if I can't figure out why everybody else liked it so much. I did like Anton Ego, the critic, voiced by Peter O'Toole, and his commentary at the end.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I also seemed to like this one much less than most people. No matter how cute the Pixar guys made them, this was still a movie about rats. When there were huge numbers of them scurrying about the kitchen, I found it deeply disturbing rather than funny as intended. And while I like fine dining more than most people, the story seemed snobbish to me. Clearly the artists, animators, sound engineers, composer, at Pixar have made a well-crafted film here. And many of the voice actors were excellent, particularly Peter O'Toole, Janeane Garofalo, and Brad Garrett. But all that talent and skill can't hide the fact that this movie did not have a good story.

Unknown said...

Glad I'm not the only one. But we're in a minority. I believe it had something like a 96% positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

Anonymous said...

Having worked in a restaurant, the whole rat thing did creep me out. Peter O'Toole was the best thing about this movie.

Cute, yes. Deserving of an Oscar, I'm not so sure.

Anonymous said...

Actually, the guy behind this one, THE INCREDIBLES (which I liked better), and THE IRON GIANT (which I didn't) has a certain arrogant geek vibe about him and his work, which frequently rankles. That it was about rats wasn't the problem for me...as ATC noted, the arrogance of the rat character was anti-endearing, and the notion of controlling someone by pulling their hair...well, new horizons in rodental reflexology, I guess.

But, like you, Bill, I found it mostly watchable and amusing enough.

Anonymous said...

I liked this one a lot. What's wrong with you rat haters? Joe