Posted by Helen on: 07.05.2007 /
We went to see Ratatouille yesterday.
I was quite impressed. I thought they did a great job of keeping it exciting all the way through (it seems like I’ve seen other films this year which dragged at certain points). The animation was amazing - I loved the parts with water. And it was interestingly different in that it was about chefs in a restaurant (as much as a film like this can be about anything).
The themes were fairly typical of family movies - such as, be loyal to your family and friends; accept people (and rats) for who they are. Nothing particularly jumped out at me about them.
Comment by: Laura M.
1 07/5/07 5:29 AM | Comment Link |I liked the “my mother believed in Heaven, so she’s covered” line.
I really laughed out loud :8-)
Comment by: Helen
2 07/6/07 1:57 PM | Comment Link |Laura I totally loved that line too!
(To other people - you probably need to see it in context to understand why it was so funny)
Comment by: Kathleen
3 07/6/07 9:34 PM | Comment Link |I really liked it, too. It had a good number of great one-liners (including the Heaven one), and I definitely laughed, and didn’t get bored…but I have to admit that, messages about acceptance or not, I did NOT enjoy the scenes of rats swarming the kitchen!
Comment by: Doreen A Mannion
4 07/8/07 12:02 AM | Comment Link |We went to see it and both enjoyed it. I have to agree with Kathleen though, the part at the end with all the rats in the kitchen, BLECH!
Comment by: David H
5 07/9/07 9:44 AM | Comment Link |Watching this movie demonstrated something I read about a while back, some things are essentially hard-wired into the human brain. I had a visceral reaction to even the early scene where the ceiling crashed down and rats went swarming everywhere. I think my guts churned more over that one than all the rats in the kitchen.
My kids thought this was the best Pixar movie yet. I have discussed it with several people and tend to agree with my children if for no other reason than this is perhaps the first mainstream American cartoon to take something that sparks such a negative reaction and make it the crux of the movie. I also liked that the Pixar people resisted the usual Disney tack of anthropomorphizing the animals. Yes, there was some of that, but the rat never talks to humans and maintains much of his rat appearance and traits. It seems silly, but I wonder how many Hollywood types thought that was brave to the point of stupidity?
Oddly, this is also the first cartoon movie I have ever attended with a general audience (not industry or newspaper types) where the crowd in the theater broke into applause at the end. This isn’t just a movie about acceptance, this is a movie about loving those who are unacceptable. That’s a message worth applauding.
Comment by: Clay
6 07/15/07 5:40 PM | Comment Link |A movie about acceptance for sure, I loved that. The scenes of rats swarming over the kitchen and the reactions of disgust is probably exactly what the creators wanted. Question what disgusts you, or perplexes you, or what you accept as normal.
Comment by: Helen
7 07/15/07 6:40 PM | Comment Link |Thanks for your comments, Clay.
I do think it’s good to question our reactions to things.
Comment by: Doreen A Mannion
8 07/16/07 3:19 PM | Comment Link |Reminds me of those books back when that would ask you things like “Would you/do you step on spiders?” then 25 pages later “Would you/do you step on dogs” then ask why you treat them differently. Made me stop laughing at people who never kill bugs inside but always set them free outside.