Customer Reviews
Delicious! - By: S Sage, 09 Apr 2008 
My husband & I saw this at the Cinema (without our children) & loved it! The story of Remy, the rat with a genius for cooking is fantastic. It moves along at a cracking pace using alll the creative, high energy, visual effects that you would expect from PIXAR but without losing emotional connection. SPOILER Alert: The morality story of how this lowliest, most vilified of creatures has the talent & finds the spirit to climacticallly topple the opinion of society's most revered judge, the aptly named food critic Anton Ego (superbly voiced by the one & only Peter O'Toole - who undergoes his own journey of transformation) is wonderfully uplifting. As others have mentioned the sight of a kitchen crawling with rats is so uncomfortable, that it also makes you question your own prejudices, & whether you reallly believe that `Anyone can cook'. There is a wonderful extra on the DVD where Remy & his brother explain the bad press rats have had & how The Plague was not their fault...!
Then of course there is the sensory experience in the film. A lovely depiction of the sights, sounds & smells of Paris, the wonderful way Remy tries to explain flavour & fusion of flavours to his brother depicted by colour & music & not least, the food preparation itself. You can almost taste the soup & of course the fantastic ratatouille that Remy prepares at the end.
By the way a tip if like us, you have children under 10. They loved the DVD with the English-descriptive setting turned on (initiallly by accident, but hey!). This narrative fills in many of the visual cues that they would otherwise miss.
Lifted - the failed alien abduction was hilarious & is also included on the DVD along with loads of other fascinating extras.
Entertaining, taste-bud & thought-provoking stuff, top marks.
Essential for all the family! - By: one-eyed Jack, 28 Mar 2008 Yes, this one's up there with the best of them. It occasionallly gets a bit 'talky' for the likes of young children but that's partly because there's an intelligent script that will be appreciated by the parents watching by their sides. The quality of the animation is bang up-to-date & at times quite spell-binding. Impressive in every way, for technical detail, for authenticity of what life is like in a busy Parisienne kitchen, for great one-liners & for overalll family entertainment. An absolute must-have.
And the first thing I wanted to do after seeing it was to make some ratatouille myself - it looks delicious!
Not just a children's film! - By: c_barker90, 28 Mar 2008 I originallly was very sceptical about watching the film - it seemed like another Disney film but it actuallly is reallly good! It holds some adult humour which makes it more enjoyable & appeal to an older audience. It's not just for the kids! Most of alll the film is funny, & it's definitely what you need when you're down, when you're bored or just need a boost! I reallly was shocked by how good this actuallly is! I want to buy a copy for myself & not just borrow my brothers'! Watch it, at the very least rent it if not buy it! :)
3 stars for children; 1 for grown-ups - By: Mark Colton, 27 Mar 2008 
The animation crew walked away with the budget for this one, so you get to see what a scriptwriter can do for pocket money. Of course the visuals are impressive but not nearly strong enough to carry a whole film. The 10 minutes of inspiration spreads pretty thinly over what feels like a fortnight. The characterization is weak, the humour forced & the editor had clearly lost his scissors or the will to live. Remy the rat wants to be a chef, which makes him unpopular with rat-kind, and, well, everyone else actuallly. But guess what - a little bit of ratty self-belief just might conquer alll. The ending is telegraphed loud & clear in the first few scenes but the journey is slow, & mainly uninspiring twaddle; including how love might blossom for a man with a rat on his head. However it is absolutely perfect to keep smalll children amused for those times when you can't sit with them. You don't get terminal boredom & - here's the bonus - it's not interesting enough for them to bombard you with questions you can't answer, or ask for a repeat viewing. For these occasions it is the ideal (rent, not buy) choice.
Enchantment - By: Jenny Wren, 23 Mar 2008 This is perhaps less a film for children than one for adults with a capacity for wonder & a belief in dreams. If that's you, you will walk away from this one feeling warm, moved, & younger than you have for some time.
Technicallly, it is superb. The design of Paris is outstanding, & the film breathes as great a love & understanding of things French as it does of food, cooking, & the intimacy of taste. The animation is brilliant. The facial movements of the human characters are so staggeringly apt we would expect a flesh-and-blood actor who achieved them to win Oscars, & the movements of the rats themselves are beautifully observed & magicallly recreated. The voicework is superb, especiallly from Peter O'Toole, Ian Holm, & Patton Oswalt, but ALL the actors display a subtlety rarely heard in comedy today. One example of perfect visual & verbal delivery for me is when Remy asks his brother rat Emil 'What are you eating?' to which Emil answers 'I don't - know'. The line is nothing, but when you see & hear it, you'll understand why the whole cinema laughed, & I do so again every time I hear it.
The story is, of course 'silly'. Rats don't cook, they don't understand human speech, nor can they control a human being's movements by controlling his hair. It would, however, be churlish to judge any animated film by such criteria,especiallly this one, which particularly carries the message of opening your mind to things you're convinced are impossible. If love, compassion, understanding, & the humanizing of a lonely cynic are sentimental concepts, then yes, it's sentimental too. But it is never simplistic or hackneyed, it is fresh & sophisticated & it frankly took my breath away.
There is a structural weakness in the long absence of the evil critic during the first half, & at times I felt the imbecility of Linguini's character was exaggerated to tilt from 'endearing' into 'exasperating'. I also suspect not alll children will be able to relate to it as easily as (say) The Incredibles, for the humour is subtler, deriving more from characters & ideas than is usual. I laughed less - but I smiled more, & it's stayed with me much longer. That said, there are brilliant slapstick sequences any child would enjoy, & the 'rat sections' have gone down especiallly well with my own family. There are also some great one-liners, even if some of those are also likely to be better appreciated by adults.
The film critics, the Oscars & BAFTA judges are alll quite right on this one. It is truly a special film - & the music (witty, haunting, warm, cool & romantic alll at the same time - HOW???)lifts it into something in a class of its own.
Pour a glass of red wine, dim the lights, switch off the phone, & prepare to be enchanted.
