Ratatouille

Warning: Possible spoilers in the second paragraph.

Here's an oddity. Ratatouille breaks with the traditions of animated movies, especially with that of Pixar's recent popular fare. Instead of a simple quest story (as in Toy Story, A Bug's Life, Finding Nemo, etc., etc.), we get an elaborate plot structure with an equally strange setting and premise. Most of this movie takes place in the kitchen of a restaurant in Paris (a majority of the characters are French), and the story is centered around the idea of savoring fine cuisine. There are so many significant minor characters that several of them get distracting, but Ratatouille splits its main character duties into two: Remy the rat and Linguini the human goofus. The two share a creative partnership that evolves, gets tested, and then morphs into a satisfying final outcome. This is the best part of the movie. Particularly satisfying was the idea of giving the rat the gift of creativity, then letting that creativity be worked out in his imaginative visions of famed chef Auguste Gusteau. A simpler movie would've made the story totally about rats or totally about humans, or else it would've given the visions of Gusteau to Linguini. But Ratatouille instead presents us with a host of perspectives, including Remy's, Linguini's, and morbid critic Anton Ego's. This, no doubt, will prove rewarding on multiple viewings.

What partially diminishes Ratatouille's complexity is the fact that it tries to bash us over the head with its moral. In fact that moral is stated outright at the end: "Not everyone can be a great artist, but a great artist can come from anywhere." Only people goofier than Linguini could've missed that. Even worse is that this moral contradicts another of the movie's prominent messages, that "anyone can cook," which is the title of Gusteau's famous book and the source for a few inspirational acts performed by the characters. But clearly (and Linguini is a stellar example) not everyone can cook. As symbolized in the dynamic between the hard-working but thieving rat colony and the palates of customers at five-star French restaurants, Ratatouille contains an implicit tension between egalitarianism and aristocracy. The ending not only leaves this tension unresolved, it blares it loudly. Ratatouille itself, we are told, is a peasant's dish now being served in the most exquisite of restaurants. So which has really triumphed? What kind of social and intellectual structure is this movie really rooting for, and does it concur with (for instance) Exodus 18 or 1 Corinthians 12?

We quibbled with other choices: with Linguini as an American, with the inclusion of his relationship with Collette, his fellow cook, and with the notion that an elderly lady would fire innumerable shotgun blasts at rats. But this is the land of animation, after all. Ratatouille is one of the best looking movies we've ever seen; do not, in other words, watch it on a small or fuzzy screen. And the voicework for Anton Ego (performed by Peter O'Toole) is fantastic. Our favorite animated movie remains one of the Toy Storys, we aren't sure which, but Ratatouille is more intelligent and novel than any other computer-generated movie we've seen. Be on the lookout for its political and social messages, and enjoy the show.

Entertainment: 8
Intelligence: 6
Morality: 7