[kugino]

i loved it. patton oswalt did a great job as remy...and peter o'toole deserves some kind of award nomination for his part. will he win his first oscar for ratatouille?

i love food...good food...and they did a great job of portraying how a kitchen runs. thomas keller of french laundry, per se, and bouchon fame was the chef consultant on the film and the final dish was based on keller's own creation. oswalt and brad bird (the director/writer) were on NPR last week and they said that keller created a 14-course meal for the cast and no one could finish their food because there was so much...things like salt courses and a butter course that featured butter made from the milk of a single cow that keller/french laundry owns. yum...

it's not, however, a movie for little kids, IMO. there were a lot of restless children at the showing i went to...gourmet food isn't for young children...and the french accents are probably difficult for kids to understand. but, i think it's a fantastic movie for adults.

 

[Purgatos]

It was fantastic.

I didn't enjoy it quite as much as The Incredibles or Finding Nemo, but it had a spot right up there with them. Which is nothing to be ashamed since that puts it easily into my top 20 all-time films.

 

[crazyfrenchman27]

Very good...

I won't spoil it for anyone by talking about it...

-Matt

 

[Rise To The Top]

I have to agree, best movie from Pixar.

 

[infinitesymphony]

One of the best movies I've seen in a long time, animated or not. A G-rated movie that doesn't hold back anything when it's appropriate. Eeeeexcellent animation. The story is simple and beautifully told.

I agree with some critics who have claimed that this movie wasn't marketed in the right ways by Disney, and that since it is not a straightforward comedy, it won't succeed in the same way that Pixar's other films have. Doesn't matter to me, though... I hope they continue to make films with an even balance of both heart and humor.

 

[TheMarchingMule]

Wow, that film was dazzling in concept, animation, characters, everything!

Whoever doesn't see it...well, their loss.

 

[MasiveMunkey]

I saw a sneak preview of the movie about three weeks ago and it blew me away. Probably the best movie I've seen in the theaters in a long time. I can't decide which I like more Toy Story or Ratatouille. It's funny, my friends and I like it so much that we went and made some Ratatouille from scratch. It's good stuff.

 

[darkangel9685]

I for one didn't like it as much as i though i would.
Granted, most of what Pixar puts out is top-notch (Incredibles, Cars, Monsters) sometimes they miss (A Bugs Life)

...Mind you this is coming from someone who didn't like Cars, saw it on DVD, and loved it soon after

 

[rhythmicmoose]

I thought it was great. Not "The Incredibles" or "Monsters, Inc." great, but at least as great as "Finding Nemo."

 

[noxlord]

Quand j'ai faim, je mange de la ratatouille.

 

[sebastian589]

I loved this movie, great animation and hilarious models for some of the characters such as gusteau, the rat/strong man, and the sous-chef whose face made me laugh everytime I saw him. Personally I am surprised to see only one mention of Toy Story which is still my favorite of the movies but that could be due to the fact that I was in my prime toy collecting stage when the movie released.

Before you go see any of the recently or soon-to-be released blockbusters you owe it to yourself to see this movie, I liked it more my second time so go see it twice!

Edit: Anyone feel like this movie should have been more heavily advertised? I haven't seen a whole lot of tv lately but this movie crept up on me, seemed to be little hype or buzz surrounding it. Pixar and Disney had to have known they had an absolute champ in Ratatouille and I would have thought they would have pushed this a little harder. Maybe they just figured throwing it into the Pirates press fund was smarter, too bad because Pirates was everything I feared it would be, and Ratatouille was the exact opposite

 

[warubozu]

Got a chance to see Ratatouille this past weekend and really enjoyed it. The animation was superb and I thought the storyline was great. My all time favorite Pixar movie is still Monter Inc. Definitely a movie worth seeing this summer. Also enjoyed Over the Hedge by DreamWorks Animation and didn't think it was that bad.

 

[blessingx]

Just as I think there is a quality hierarchy of American animation and Pixar is well above Dreamworks, Fox Animation Studio and recent non-Pixar Disney, I think there is a hierarchy with Pixar and it's fun to list best to worst. The outsider Brad Birds Ratatouille and The Incredibles are a significant step forward over the Pixar insiders of Lasseter, Ranft, etc. It's also why I'm nervous about the next three films starting with WALL*EEEEEEEEEE. Anyway, I'm torn as The Incredibles is tighter, but Raratouille is the Incredibles and Iron Giant (also Bird) story taken even further. I also like that what was going to be the first non-Disney Pixar film (eventually Disney bought Pixar or basically Pixar management ate Disney) was going to have a rat as the main character. Mickey Mouse, meet Rémy the RAT.


The Incredibles > Ratatouille > ... Toy Story > Toy Story 2 > ... Finding Nemo > Bug's Life > ..... Monsters, Inc. > ............. Cars

EDIT: I just got emailed this link. Some of you that mentioned the marketing may find it interesting.

 

[trains are bad]

I've been waiting for modern western animation to produce serious, nonanthropomorphic, mature movies since, well, forever. Is this a step in that direction perhaps? What is it about? No spoilers. Internet reviews always contain spoilers.

 

[blessingx]

I assume you're not directly connecting "serious", "nonanthropomorphic", and "mature" (as they function so independently), but no this film isn't all three if you're looking for them. It's about a talking rat.

People define spoilers so differently, so I never know how far to go, but if you saw the core of the other Brad Bird films you know the focus here. If not, it's about the courage to be great. Among the related issues, are that of independence & family and the connection between artist & critic (which interestingly many critics are getting wrong). Make no mistake it's still a sugar-coated pill, but it goes down very well. I've seen it twice, and may go back a third.

If you choose to stretch the "spoilers" a bit, let me cite A.O. Scott (NYTimes):

Quote:

The moral of “Ratatouille” is delivered by a critic: a gaunt, unsmiling fellow named Anton Ego who composes his acidic notices in a coffin-shaped room and who speaks in the parched baritone of Peter O’Toole. “Not everyone can be a great artist,” Mr. Ego muses. “But a great artist can come from anywhere.” Its sensibility, implicit in Mr. Ego’s aphorism, is both exuberantly democratic and unabashedly elitist, defending good taste and aesthetic accomplishment not as snobbish entitlements but as universal ideals. Like “The Incredibles,” Mr. Bird’s earlier film for Pixar, “Ratatouille” celebrates the passionate, sometimes aggressive pursuit of excellence, an impulse it also exemplifies.