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Patton Oswalt, Ian Holm, Lou Romano, Brian Dennehy, Peter Sohn ... see more see more... , Peter O'Toole , Brad Garrett , Janeane Garofalo , Will Arnett , Julius Callahan , James Remar , John Ratzenberger , Teddy Newton , Tony Fucile , Jake Steinfeld , Brad Bird , Stéphane Roux ,

A scrawny rat named Remy (voice of Patton Oswalt) finds his dreams of culinary superstardom stirring up sizable controversy in the kitchen of a fine French restaurant in director Brad Bird's madcap co... read more read more...mputer-animated comedy. It's hard being a rat with culinary aspirations, but Remy is convinced he has what it takes to break the stereotypes and follow in the footsteps of star chef Auguste Gusteau (voice of Brad Garrett). As fate would have it, Remy is currently situated in the sewers directly beneath Gusteau's elegant restaurant. Soon Remy teams up with a young chef with little talent named Linguini (voice of Lou Romano). Together they are able to create some fabulous dishes, but they live in fear that someone will discover their secret and object strenuously to a rat being in a kitchen. When Remy's passion for cooking turns the haughty world of French cuisine upside down, the rat who would be king of the kitchen learns important lessons about life, friends, and family while questioning whether he should pursue his culinary calling or simply go back underground and return to his life as a sewer rat. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

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84% liked it

967,884 ratings

Critics

96% liked it

217 critics

G, 1 hr. 50 min.

Directed by: Brad Bird

Release Date: June 29, 2007

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DVD Release Date: November 6, 2007

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Stats: 112,138 reviews

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Ratatouille ratatouille Remy in RATATOUILLE Ratatouille Remy in RATATOUILLE RATATOUILLE - Remy and Linguini Emile from RATATOUILLE Remy Remy & Linguini in RATATOUILLE Remy in RATATOUILLE Remy RATATOUILLE - Gusteau and Remy Remy & Linguini in RATATOUILLE Remy in RATATOUILLE Ratatouille Remy & Linguini in RATATOUILLE Remy in RATATOUILLE Remy
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Flixster Reviews (112,138)

  • jmanard52
    May 11, 2008
    jmanard52
    This was a charming movie that was a great time for me and my daughter.
  • brooklynspo
    February 16, 2008
    brooklynspo
    Didn't love it, but i do wish i had seee it in the theatre. some fun animation but i just didn't connect very strongly with Remy the Rat and the many storylines. Peter O'Toole is quite delicious as the heavy.
  • aquateen2
    February 20, 2012
    aquateen2
    Ratatouille is among Pixar's best. The films moral is simple and it is explained really well. It is an extremely memorable production that looks good and has an original storyline, it's action sequences are great to look at and overall it's quite simply a masterpiece.
  • mumby1988
    February 9, 2012
    mumby1988
    One of the golden rules of film reviewing is to never judge a film by its reputation. While this vigilance is particularly required during awards season, it is essential not to judge any film by the prestige of the people who made it; as we all know, good directors can make bad f... read moreilms, and vice versa. This principle seems to have escaped the majority of people who saw Ratatouille, which when stripped of its Pixar prestige and kid-friendly marketing is disappointingly ordinary.

    Being PIXAR, you're pretty certain from the start that Ratatouille was never going to be a genuinely bad film. The quality control at PIXAR is immense, with writers and animators sometimes taking five or six years to weed out all the aspects which aren't quite right until they end up with a fitting finished product. This is not a case of a bad film slipping through the net - it is clearly the film that PIXAR and director Brad Bird wanted to make.

    This feeling is confirmed by the gorgeous animation. There is not a single frame in Ratatouille which is not beautifully designed, lit or shot, with both humans and animals being increasingly photo-realistic. In the six years since Monsters Inc., which solved the hair and fur problem, CG animation has moved on apace so that now you almost don't notice the artistry - and that, in theory, means that you are focussed on the story rather than the spectacle.

    There are some genuine laughs in Ratatouille, which come as much as anything from the setting and the style of comedy. Kitchens and restaurants have always been fertile grounds for slapstick and farce, from Charlie Chaplin's antics in Rink and Modern Times, through to Blake Edwards' The Party and the 'Gourmet Night' episode of Fawlty Towers. The set-pieces, involving slipping on liquid, clanging saucepans and inadvertently ruining dishes, are all pretty standard and (pun intended) par for the course. But they are executed in a dextrous and reasonably elaborate manner which makes one either chuckle or applaud in admiration.

    Some of the supporting characters in Ratatouille are very well-designed. Peter O'Toole gives a good performance as Anton Ego, playing against type to create some other-worldly hybrid of Will Self and Farmer Bean out of Roald Dahl's Fantastic Mr. Fox. The best scene in the film finds him tasting the ratatouille, before flashing back to his childhood where the same dish was served by his mother. Elsewhere Ian Holm is unrecognisable as the short(-tempered) Skinner, and John Ratzenberger makes a welcome cameo as the head waiter.

    So far, so good - but there's a problem. For all there is to like and admire about the design of Ratatouille, you get the sense that the film is trying too hard to live up to PIXAR's reputation. In its attempt to consciously hit all the same emotional buttons of Toy Story, Monsters Inc. and Finding Nemo, it forgets to have any of the startling originality and panache which made the PIXAR brand great in the first place. If this didn't have PIXAR anywhere on it, it would probably have been dismissed as a sweet and twee but ultimately unremarkable offering.

    Notwithstanding the technological leaps they represented, most of PIXAR's films worked because they pushed the envelope of what children's films and family entertainment could do. They combined the most cutting-edge technology and smartest filmmaking techniques with genuine affection for old cinema, proper characters and stories that had something for everyone. While Cars was the first film in which the visuals dominated the story, Ratatouille is the first PIXAR offering that feels like it has been screen-tested. It's too generic, too shiny, too safe to be a proper PIXAR film, and in its weaker moments it's not much better than the worst of Dreamworks.

    This is reflected in the fact that so much of Ratatouille's plot is stuff that we have seen before. The central conceit that a rat could cook is not a million miles from the final act in Gore Verbinski's Mousehunt, and as in Mousehunt there are various japes and pranks in which the rodents get one over on the humans. You could almost call Ratatouille a spiritual sequel to Verbinski's film. In any case, it is the mouse that beats the rat hands (or claws) down.

    For all the problems with Gore Verbinski (and there are many), Mousehunt still cuts the mustard as a perfectly passible slapstick farce. Despite the talent involved, like Lee Evans and Christopher Walken, the film was content with being reasonable, innocuous and unassuming - hence when the odd little surprise arrived, it was warmly welcomed. Ratatouille, on the other hand, wants everyone to fall in adoration at its feet, to herald it as a pioneering work of art when in fact it is nothing of the sort.

    There are other derivative touches too. Having Gusteau's spirit coaching Remy is a rather lazy reworking of Jiminy Cricket from Pinocchio, but without any of the charm or dark consequences. The sewer scenes are at best a sped-up variation on Finding Nemo and at worst a rip-off of Don Bluth's Rock-a-Doodle. In and of themselves these little touches aren't annoying or off-putting, but they reinforce the feeling that we are not seeing anything new (or at least, not as new as we have come to expect).

    The problem is not just the material: it is Bird's execution and delivery of it. When he started his career in animation, working first for Disney and then The Simpsons, he seemed to have mastered the art of telling stories in a way which had the widest possible appeal. His feature debut, The Iron Giant, is proof of this, retuning Ted Hughes' novel into a Spielberg-style romp with great characters and real emotions.

    But while John Lasseter, Lee Unkrich and Andrew Stanton have continued and refined this knack of appealing to children and adults alike, Bird has become guilty of making adult films which look like they are aimed at children. The Incredibles may have a lot of whizz-bang action in its second half, but it's hard to believe that very young children will swallow the opening act about selling insurance and going on conferences.

    In this case Bird has taken a relatively grown-up story about cooking and the food business and told it in the style of a kid's film. It is not a cynical sleight-of-hand like Shark Tale or the later Shrek films, but at heart it is still a film for grown-ups which just happens to look like a kid's film. The dialogue is so fast-paced that young children might miss out on key moments, and the film's overly cute tone overcompensates for the fact that the issues it addresses are predominantly adult ones.

    Like The Incredibles, Ratatouille is also a little long and baggy. It's not so long and baggy that the comic pace is lost - there are still wonderful little pockets of energy throughout. But at times it feels like it is going through the motions to satisfy audience expectations, and the romance between Linguini and Colette is laboured. The film is predictable enough without this relationship, and even when the characters get screen time together, they feel too generic to really care about.

    Ratatouille is a surprisingly innocuous and disappointing offering from PIXAR. You couldn't liken it to rotten fruit, or a drink that leaves a sour taste in the mouth, because it never leaves enough of an impression to get upset about its flaws. Bird's early work suggests that he has better films in him, and for wiling away a Sunday evening it will do its job. In the end, it is the cinematic equivalent of icing sugar - very pretty and very sweet, but not as tasty or as weighty as it should be.
  • phubbs1
    February 8, 2012
    phubbs1
    This looks awesome, it really shows how far animation has come, everything looks real and pretty tasty haha the problem is the plot, its just not really interesting. Who cares about a French restaurant and cheffing lol! a rat wanting to be a chef and makes great food??? its just ... read moreuninteresting and silly, thus being the problem.

    The voices are good and there are some really nice fun scenes but then its back to food talk, its not that funny either, here and there maybe. It wins points for looks really, just like allot of films these days it looks really stunning in every detail but apart from that its just business as usual with yet another animated film about another type of creature.
  • spielberg00
    February 4, 2012
    spielberg00
    What do you get when you cross a rat with the kitchen?
  • fb733768972
    January 15, 2012
    fb733768972
    "Ratatouille" is exactly what you can expect from "Pixar" animated feature. It has heart, action, and audiences will definitely begin to feel for rats around the world, that they may be pests, but they are living creatures, just like humans. While watching a helpless boy ruin a k... read moreitchen recipe, saved by a genius rat who makes him a famous cook, my jaw was on the floor at how much emotion I was able to feel. It is going to be very hard for me to harm any kind of rodent in the future, no matter how much it freaks me out. This heartwarming tale of a rat who loves to cook, and is hated by his family, is one of Pixar's best films, and I believe it will remain that way for a very long time. I absolutely love this film, and I highly recommend it to anyone who is worthy enough to let that child side out of you! "Ratatouille" is a kids masterpiece!
  • 3niR
    January 4, 2012
    3niR
    Absolutely recommend to watch this movie. It's fun to watch with your family.
  • StarCrossedVoyager
    December 26, 2011
    StarCrossedVoyager
    Contrary to the popular feelings of this film, I didn't think it was really that good. Yes it had great characters and a decent story but for some reason I just didn't feel it as much as others did. I got tired of it quite quickly and had it been shorter then it would have worked... read more better.
  • thmtsang
    December 25, 2011
    thmtsang
    Great animation and original story about a rat who wants to be a top chef in Paris.

View All Ratatouille Reviews

Critic Reviews

Bob Mondello
October 18, 2008
Bob Mondello, NPR.org

Kids are gonna gobble Ratatouille up; adults will relish its wit, and everyone will want to go out to eat after. Full Review

Roger Ebert
August 31, 2007
Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

A lot of animated movies have inspired sequels, notably Shrek, but Brad Bird's Ratatouille is the first one that made me positively desire one. Full Review

Andrew Sarris
July 18, 2007
Andrew Sarris, New York Observer

Ratatouille is a veritable feast for the eye and the ear. Don't miss it. Full Review

David Denby
July 16, 2007
David Denby, New Yorker

In Ratatouille, the level of moment-by-moment craftsmanship is a wonder. Full Review

Joe Baltake
July 12, 2007
Joe Baltake, Passionate Moviegoer

Would it be redundant - or too premature - to call 'Ratatouille' the best film of the year? Full Review

Richard Roeper
July 6, 2007
Richard Roeper, Ebert & Roeper

I think Brad Bird is working on another level than most animated writer/directors.

Stephanie Zacharek
June 30, 2007
Stephanie Zacharek, Salon.com

This delicious tale of a rat who cooks is pure joy, a grand achievement -- one of the most beautiful animated pictures ever made. Full Review

Desson Thomson
June 29, 2007
Desson Thomson, Washington Post

Ratatouille doesn't center on the over-familiar surfaces of contemporary life. It harks back to Disney's older era, when cartoons seemed part of a more elegant world with less edgy characters. Full Review

Peter Howell
June 29, 2007
Peter Howell, Toronto Star

Had Bird gone the safe route, he would have robbed us of a great new cartoon figure in Remy, who like the rest of the film is rendered with animation that is at once fanciful and life-like. It's also ... Full Review

Richard Corliss
June 29, 2007
Richard Corliss, TIME Magazine

From the moment Remy enters, crashing, to the final happy fadeout, Ratatouille parades the brio and depth that set Pixar apart from and above other animation studios. Full Review

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Facts

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    • Remy: What... Are you eating?
    • Emile: I don't really know. I think it was some sort of... rapper once.
    • Colette: Keep your stations clear or I will kill you!
    • Emile: The key, my friend, is to not be picky. Observe.
    • Skinner: What are you doing in here?
    • Linguini: I'm just familiarizing myself with, you know, the vegetables and such.
    • Skinner: Get out. One can get too familiar with vegetables, you know!
    • Linguini: Ratatouille doesn't sound delicious. It sounds like 'rat' and 'patootie.' Rat-patootie.
    • Remy: Bonjour!
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  • Where did the movie Ratatouille take place   Answer »
  • The movie Ratatouille was set in?  Answer »
  • Brad Bird, the director of "Ratatouille," also voiced which fashion-forward character in "The Incredibles"?  Answer »
  • In addition to "Ratatouille," which other Disney animated movies take place in Paris?  Answer »
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