Movie Review: Ratatouille

The short of it: 6 out of 8 Nations.

The long of it:

Pixar just can't do anything wrong in the Nation's eyes. The only Pixar movie I have never seen is Cars (and that should change soon, as Total Access delivered it to my mailbox just a few days ago), and not a single one of them has ever disappointed me. Even the short animated film they show before the feature presentation - none of them has ever disappointed me. And Ratatouille was no different.

In a nutshell, Ratatouille has been the most enjoyable movie I have seen this summer, edging out Live Free or Die Hard. This was Brad Bird's first feature since The Incredibles (my favorite Pixar film of all time) and he did not disappoint.

The angles, the point of views - it's just amazing the animation work that Pixar is capable of. And the story was very good and funny as well. The voices of the characters were great, combining a mix of old Pixar standbys like Lou Romano and John Ratzenberger, and Pixar newbies like Patton Oswalt, Brad Garrett, Janeane Garafalo and Ian Holm.

Brad Bird even fires some broadsides at critics, and does so in a way that doesn't sound too obnoxious or preachy either. Bird used the perfect metaphor for the animation world (and by extension, the comic book world as well) in the Ratatouille dish prepared by Remy for Ego. Ratatouille was called a "peasant dish" by one of the characters, the same way animation and comic books are called "low art" by certain people. But tasting the dish made Ego remember what made him love what he did in the first place; and everyone is best served to be reminded that it's not the medium, but the quality of the work and the message itself, that is the barometer of the significance of art.