Ratatouille

Scott Hardie: “It was ok.”

As Pixar digs deeper into the particular obsessions of its stable of filmmakers, it loses not just sizeable chunks of its audience not interested in professional motorsports or French cuisine, but some of the epic scope of their ambitious earlier films. Brad Bird's last film was The Incredibles, which redeemed the half-baked satire of its first half with some terrific whiz-bang adventure sequences in its second half. Late in the production of Jan Pinkava's modest, sweet-natured tale of Parisian chefs, Bird took over and tried to inject more action and suspense, but it's too little too late: This tale simply feels too small, too dull, and too static for filmgoers accustomed to more from the kings of modern animation. It's not that the film puts its focus on human (and rat) personalities over action sequences; it's that those personalities just aren't interesting enough to carry a whole film. Of course, the animation is superb, there are a number of laugh-out-loud funny moments for kids and adults, and best of all, the film will make you want to cook.

− April 3, 2008 • more by Scott • log in or create an account to reply