Music
Ratatouille
March 12, 2010 by admin · 5 Comments
Product Description
RATATOUILLE (DVD/WS 2.39/DD 5.1/SP-FR-BOTH)Amazon.com
One key point: if you can get over the natural gag reflex of seeing hundreds of rodents swarming over a restaurant kitchen, you will be free to enjoy the glory of Ratatouille, a delectable Pixar hit. Our hero is Remy, a French rat (voiced by Patton Oswalt) with a cultivated palate, who rises from his humble beginnings to become head chef at a Paris restaurant. How this happens is the stuff of Pixar magi… More >>
Ever since the preview came out, I looked forward to seeing “Ratatouille” with a glowing and anticipatory glee. I even made a point of reserving a seat at the most luxurious, opulent moviehouse in Manhattan, the Ziegfeld showplace theater on 54th Street. As I walked onto the luxuriant plush red embroidered carpeting of the Ziegfeld, I was sure that I could spend the next two hours of my life in pleasant laughter, relaxation and artistic bliss.
No such luck!
Ratatouille turned out to be another over-the-top, soulless, conceited Hollywood animation gimmick to lure a big box office with over-the-top high-definition animated graphics, over-the-top, gratuitous action scenes (bordering on violent and scary), and lazy, contrived attempts at humor and storytelling which were nothing more than a rehash of tired old stereotypes, slapstick vaudeville routine, and use of any ethinic, social or psychobabble urban mythology which might possibly provoke an audience to force themselves to laugh.
In fact, I can’t even write a complete review of “Ratatouille” here, because I was so irritated and assaulted by this film that I felt compelled to walk out of the auditorium and leave after only thirty minutes. Not only that, but I actually felt compelled to wait in the lobby for ten minutes while the manager gave me a refund, that’s how indignant, offended and violated I felt.
Specifically: The movie’s first 30 minutes featured the following irritating, offensive aspects: 1. The sound levels of the movie (not the theater, because there were quiet segments which disproved that it was the theater’s sound system) were ear-splittingly, dangerously loud during many of its “action” sequences, most of which in my view would be scary, upsetting and maybe cause nightmares or upset in children. I would certainly not take my young children to see such a movie. OK, the movie is about a rat, which would be ok since he is drawn adequately cute and cuddly, but the producers felt it was also necessary to show marauding packs of thousands of filthy rats hoarding and swarming the entire screen as if they were trying to parody the rat horror flicks of the 1970’s. Was it effective? Yes, it effectively made me nauseous and even disturbed, and I’m not 5, I’m 39 years old. 2., In the first 20 minutes, there are several scenes of extreme violence, all of which I thought were totally unnecessary, excessive and again, disturbing. Animated films are supposed to show *restraint* and *discretion* in the choice of their visuals and dialogue, not to immitate a Rambo action movie. Yet no such restraint and discretion was observed here, instead, the directors seemed to think they were free to shoot this movie as if it was “Die Hard III”. In addition, 3., the film felt continuously as if the producers had a definite, pre-conceived “agenda”; that is, not to make a natural, free-flowing story of real characters, compelling storyline and natural comedy, music and jokes, but rather to make a movie where they had to insert an endless amount of P.C. (politically-correct) story elements and opinion-points to get across a pre-conceived “message” to the audience, checking off political points from a list as they went along. So, in the first twenty minutes, our senses are bombarded when an otherwise quiet senior citizen-retiree grandma character quietly enjoying TV suddenly gains the strength of a 20-year-old young man and literally goes “berserk” when she sees Remy and his brother rat, pulling out a 12-guage shotgun, firing about twenty-five 150-decible rounds into the walls (this is where I think my ears were damaged–in fact, my ears still hurt me now even 4 1/2 hours later), trying to blow Remy and brother to pulp, before the producers have her reach on her shelf for more buckshot to reload.
Obviously (unless I’m just imagining things), the producers of this film (isn’t Pixar and Dreamworks owned by the anti-Gun Rights zealot Steven Shpielberg?) are against people owning guns, because as they emphasize so aggressively and violently, all granmdas in farm country who own shotguns apparently always keep their guns leaning next to them on their recliners when they are watching TV, and they are all so senile and dementiated that they have pop-open umbrellas shoved into the barrels, which pop open in their face when they try to fire at any assailant; and, these otherwise placid grandmas will grab the shotgun at the drop of a hat, and proceed to shoot up their entire cottage, causing thousands of dollars of damage, on the mere sight of any rodent or any other possible threat, whether it’s a stray ant, butterfly, or a scary unknown shadow. It’s obvious that Steven Shpielberg and his team at Pixar have never lived with gun owners nor in farm country, otherwise they would know that gun owners in country cottages don’t shoot up and destroy their homes when they find rodents, they lay traps and poison or they dispatch their cats. But then, if Pixar left out the crazed shotgun-wielding grandma scene, they wouldn’t be addressing their producers’ pet-peeve gun-control agenda item. (Of course, maybe Steven Shpielberg HAS lived in the country, but he probably lived on an estate with private armed security guards, which is why he doesn’t understand that most of the rest of us can’t afford private security and we need to own our own guns if we want self-defense.)
Then ten minutes later in Paris, Remy spies on a typically-explosive, zealously jealous French couple, who are arguing so intensely that they point a semi-automatic pistol at each other, before quickly flinging it away and leaping into a passionate embrace. Again, according to the producers, anyone who owns a gun is a crazy, unstable basket case, and no one, especially French lovers, or those inclined to love as passionately as French lovers do, should ever be allowed to own a gun, which apparently is why France is wise and intelligent to have so much stricter gun control than we have here in the U.S., or so we’re meant to believe. Thank God gun owners and people in general are almost always more responsible than how they’re portrayed in this hairbrained movie and the rest of Hollywood. Now granted, the threat of gun violence has been portrayed even in classic animated movies I’ve loved greatly, such as “Pocahontas”, but it was done subtly, and it was done in appropriate moments, and it was not over-the-top or even contrived, it was done because it was right and it made sense–here it was obviously and overtly a political or social message: gun owners are all crazy, guns should be banned for civilians, who are just too incompetent and stupid to have them, and inanimate guns are dangerous in and of themselves, blah, blah, blah. Maybe America’s #1 Victim-Disarmer, Michael Bloomberg, was one of “Ratatouille’s” principal investors, who knows. It certainly does display all of Bloomberg’s famous manipulativeness and conniving dishonesty.
Even in the fancy kitchen environment of Chef Gusteau’s 5-Star restaurant where Remy winds up, we’re made to sit through fancy, multi-trillion dollar special effects when our poor dopey rat falls into simmering stews, soapy kitchen sinks and buckets of detergent, and we can see every boring pixel of these various liquids and sauces as Remy tumbles into them and thrashes to the surface, yet nowhere is all of this fancy technical animation wizardry even the least bit pleasing or redeeming. And, the creators bungled Gusteau’s character, instead of being humorous they only succeed in giving him the biggest jowls and stomach in all of France, but they forgot to make him look genuinely pleasing and enjoyable. The movie’s portrayal of French people in general was merely a cross between the usual cynical, surly, nasty French grease ball-type or the pompous, self-absorbed effeminate fools which Americans are constantly urged to think all French people are by our media pundits, people like Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, and similar low-lifes (all of whom themselves usually enjoy vacationing in France, which they know is one of the most beautiful and sophisticated cultures and nations in the entire world. Maybe they just don’t want to let the rest of us in on their little secret, but is there really anyone anywhere, even here in Freedom Fry America, who ISN’T aware that France, with its charming, classy, educated men, knockout-gorgeous style-savvy women, classic architecture, art, exquisite geography and culture, is an utterly beautiful and heavenly place to eat, live, talk, and love??).
The dialogue and storyline, for the first 30 minutes I was there, was more irritating, incoherent and scattered than it was illuminating or inspiring. In fact, the story played on all the usual gimmicks and cliches, with a sourpuss cynical rat father, the bright, go-for-anything younger brother character who turns out having the exact opposite of dad’s personality, the Chef-deity spirit of Chef Gusteau, who the film prematurely reveals is only “a figment” of Remy’s over-active culinary imagination; and of course, the hopeless underdog loser Linguini, who doubtless succeeds beyond everyone’s wildest expectations at the end, right?
How sad it all is. As I truly had been eagerly looking forward to enjoying a fine animated work of art, or at the very least a skillful and tastefully done film production. I had very high expectations for this movie, and I was grossly let down. Alas, when we crash into Reality, we realize again that it is usually not to be, not when rich investors need only pluck down a few hundred million, and their Hollywood animation houses can think up an appealing story idea (a French country rat who becomes a world-class chef–yes, that really is a GREAT idea with true potential, yet miserably wasted in this film), crank out a high-tech, easily-marketable animation extravaganza along with a slick movie trailer to pull in yearning audiences, and count on a horde of reliable industry-insider movie critics who will guarantee them a five-star, glowing review, all turned on a dime. And No, I don’t care how happily or rosily this movie turned out in the end; like all Hollywood films, I’m sure everything turned our perfectly for our heroes and they all lived happily ever after, yet all that matters to me was that the first thirty minutes were TERRIBLE, therefore the movie was terrible for me, Period. A really great movie is great from start to finish, not just great for the last half or two-third’s.
When I go to animated movies, I’m prepared to suspend my disbelief and actually accept that Paris’ most celebrated Chef has returned from food heaven to guide our heroes to immortality; but magic just won’t be allowed, for this movie is made by the same kind of therapeutic-state businessmen as the ones who invest in a pharmaceutical industry that wants to force-feed our children Ritalin and anti-depressants; and a bad animated film like this is certainly enough to make any young child viewer eventually need to be put on a regime of Ritalin or anti-depressants–it’s probably movies like this that are partly one reason so many of our kids ARE on Ritalin and Zyprexa.
In summary, this film was so disappointing, assaultative on my senses and sensibilities, and disrespectful of my aesthetic tastes and intelligence that I was forced to quickly leave before enduring any more of it.
I’m the kind of kid at heart who yearns for things of beauty that I can believe in and admire with all my soul. I love films like “Mulan”, “Pocahontas”, “Fantasia”, movies of pure beauty, innocence, elegance and simplicity, and of course also Japanese anime and European comic novels where artists and writers at least treat their audiences with intellectual respect and sensitivity, if some young children happen to get a hold of those; but I don’t care at all for an aggressive, loud, intellectually-lazy film like “Ratatouille” where the producers are calculatingly intent on shoving an aggressive and crude political and social agenda down my throat.
I feel very upset having had my evening ruined going to this. How is a young child going to feel seeing Ratatouille? Either they’re going to be upset by it, or they’re going to be bored (hopefully) and leave, or worse, they’re going to be further damaged and desensitized from another of the gratuitous, psychologically-heavy “entertainment” offerings we’re constantly bombarded with in this country, films like Shrek Parts 1-100 and the rest of them, where every kids’ film has to be a mind-blowing electrocution of subtle messages, hyperactive pranks, social commentary, elaborate visuals, clever entendras, nerve-shattering action scenes and cruel inside jokes. I’m sorry, but it all gives me a headache. Can’t we make simple, enjoyable, warm movies anymore, movies that don’t try to be too much, movies that even might have some quiet, tranquil moments??
Yeah, Ratatouille has stunning, near-divine high definition animation. Unfortunately, it’s the product of a bunch of shallow, politically-motivated Hollywood business people who don’t know the first thing about what is important in High Art–and that’s the kind of art I think animated movies should live up to, when they are following in the footsteps of the classic Disney-type films, and animation was first created with that aspiring ideal and commitment to pure beauty. I’ll give them a hint: Any great movie starts with the writing and scripting, not with budgeting $100 billion for the f/x department. And animation art is supposed to flow and blossom naturally, not be jerked and prodded along like prisoners on the Bataan Death March.
“Ratatouille” was a complete failure before the film even ended, when I was nowhere to be seen by the other people who had stayed to watch it. Apparently, they have far more endurance and tolerance for mediocrity than I do. Instead, I found a beautiful new art deco bar nearby where they had about a million times the sense of style, taste, beauty and restraint, just in their pinky fingers, as “Ratatouille’s” producers had displayed in a mere thirty minutes of screen time and $50 million dollars of production costs. There was no loud music, no garrish visuals, no cheap jokes and no earthshaking thrillrides–finally I had regained some quiet and peace in which to attempt to decompress and calm down after this movie’s body-slamming, full-frontal assault.
Rating: 1 / 5
Rats are not cute, they are disgusting. Rats in kitchens and around food are revolting. Rats are a source of filth and disease. Hundreds of millions of human beings have died because of rats. Is the moviegoer supposed to enjoy the frission of revulsion? What comes next? A movie about dancing maggots?
Rating: 1 / 5
This movie didn’t seem to have any of the usual Pixar qualities that I love… No lovable easy to relate to characters… No amazing story line to watch over and over. They seemed to have exchanged the classic Pixar witticisms for slapstick. Frankly I was bored during this movie and fast-forwarded most of the never ending “rat scurrying under kitchen feet” scenes. I wanted to turn it off after the first 15 minutes!
I will say that this movie grossed me out and I happen to love mousey rodent creatures. This movie shows a rat running all over kitchens and food… I just couldn’t take it!
I will however admit that I am the type of person who is easily bothered by animals and food proximities. Everything he touched I was like “CONTAMINATED! IT’S CONTAMINATED! DON’T COOK WITH THAT!! DON’T EAT IT!!!” (Though they do emphasize how important it is to have clean “paws” etc…) Maybe it’s just me… Maybe I’m too obsessed with the idea of cooking cleanliness… Bottom line I didn’t really care about the story or the characters (Most of them looked down right creepy for kids)…
Unless you love rats and cooking cartoon slapstick you may not be very impressed… Watch and decide!
Rating: 1 / 5
This is Disney/Pixars 8th movie. I saw it today and it was ok, but it’s not one of my favorites, it’s plot is too similar to ealyer Disney/Pixar movies where a character is rejected from the group, but later on redeems himself.
Rating: 1 / 5
I can safely say that I’ve seen well over 1,000 moving pictures in my years and I’ve had a lot of different responses to each and every one; some have left me baffled either with their genius or their idiocy, some have left me in chills and some have left me completely numb and utterly bleak.
BUT Pixar Disney’s latest installment in animated banality actually managed to make me vomit it was so bad. Seriously, the film ended, and I was so overcome with anger at it’s sheer stupidity and absolute lack of humor that I retched up some of my dinner. Congratulations.
The general population really is full of nitwits if trash like this can flourish as well as it has.
Toy Story was absolutely magnificent, everything after that has been total tripe.
Rating: 1 / 5