| Overall Grade: |
A+ |
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| Story: |
A+ |
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| Acting: |
A+ |
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| Direction: |
A+ |
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| Visuals: |
A+ |
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Amazing surprise from Pixar, a great dish!
by Nate P (movies profile)
Nov 16, 2007
94
of
135 people found this review helpful
My wife and I got to enjoy one of the sneak previews of Ratatouille, when Disney had a pre-release at limited theaters 2 weeks prior to it's official opening night. I have to admit, when I saw the first preview for Pixar's Ratatouille at the opening night of their last movie, Cars, I did not have a clue what to expect. The more teasers and trailers I saw, the more I thought this might be the first Pixar film that I would not come away from thinking it was great. But boy was I wrong! This film uses amazing visuals - even for Pixar's standards, a great cast, and a wonderfully thorough story to bring what ends up as one of Pixar's best films to date.
This work of art moving on the screen introduced us to a very believable world, while still having the fantasy of any animated film. The visuals, as most have commented on, are some of the best for any animated film to date - let alone that from the amazing artists at Pixar. The details - like the look of different materials, the true-to-life motion of the characters and just the overall animation of this film was a total enjoyment in and of itself. Simply stunning, the creators of computer assisted animation as we know it today have done an absolutely amazing job with the look of this film.
Also something that I appreciate tremendously from Pixar, is their use of voice-talent. It seems that other animation studios attempt to get the big names to be the stars of their animated movies, which in most cases just distracts from the story. With Pixar, they seem to pick actor's whose voices make sense with the part they are playing. Of course they might end up being a big name, but sometimes you can't find someone other than Tom Hanks to provide the perfect voice for Woody for the Toy Story movies. Pixar doesn't dissapoint with Ratatouille in this regard. Who would have thought that Patton Oswalt would make the perfect voice for Remy the rat. I especially enjoyed Lou Romano as Linguini and Ian Holm as Skinner (the chef that assumed control of Gusteau's after the big guy died), they did superb jobs of acting and making these characters very believable.
All the visuals and talent can only get you so far, but as I firmly believe this film (or any film) would be nothing without a good story. In Ratatouille's case (as is usually the case with Pixar's films), everything that was done for this film was done to tell a story - and a great one at that. Going back to what I expected going in, I thought this might be just another story that we have all seen too many times before, something happy-go-lucky and too unbelievable to really get anything meaningful from. But Brad Bird added so much more to it than that, that it made my wife and I walk away from this movie smiling and sharing our thoughts about this great story. Trying not to spoil the movie for everyone that should go see it, and that should read "everyone" should go see it, I will attempt to keep it brief. I enjoy the issues that Bird and the crew at Pixar are willing to address, and I really appreciate how they are willing to address these issues in a realistic light. Like the main storyline of having a big dream, and when you have a big dream - which everyone does - not to let anyone guilt you or pressure you away from what you're heart and talents lead you to do, not even your family or yourself. Something else that made the underlying intentions in this story so great, is how they show that everyone is someone - and everyone can be good if they choose to be and are given the opportunity to be. Although some have complained about this being a weakness to the movie, I think it has a direct correlation to real life - that even the most critical or "evil" of people out there don't have to be that way.
There is much more I could go on and on about from this delightful film, but you must go to see what this wonderful creation of Pixar's is all about in person. That smile comes back to my face often when I think back on this movie, and I will probably try to see it in theaters again this opening weekend. Overall, I highly recommend this movie, for those of you that don't care about story as much as I do - at least just go and enjoy the stunning visuals or the well cast acting or for the enjoyable laughs, whatever you like in movies - you should definitely see this one! Great job Pixar! |
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