'Ratatouille' recipe lacks flair

The Disney/Pixar collaboration is slow-paced and deals with a subject of little interest to typical kids.

By STEVE PERSALL
Published June 28, 2007

	Disney/Pixar's Ratatouille doesn't quite cut the cheese.
[Disney/Pixar]

Ratatouille isn't a bad movie, just one that doesn't do enough of what it does well.

Disney/Pixar marketers would have you believe that Ratatouille is the creative and entertainment equal of previous hits such as The Incredibles (also written and directed by Brad Bird) and Cars. It isn't.

Lovely, yet leaden, Ratatouille is the first Disney/Pixar collaboration since the mouse ate the cats who eventually would have made Disney animation obsolete. There's a lot riding on this movie, such as convincing shareholders it was worth spending $7.4-billion to acquire Pixar.

Ratatouille is the story of Remy the rat (voice of Patton Oswalt), whose refined palate makes garbage unappetizing. Living in Paris offers plenty of gastronomical delights. Remy is ridiculed by his peers for preferring them.

Curiosity leads Remy into the kitchen of a bistro formerly owned by the deceased chef Gusteau (Brad Garrett), whose ghost becomes the rat's guardian angel. The film's liveliest sequence, which Disney offered online as moviegoer bait, shows Remy dodging humans who are trying to kill him. At the same time, he's adding corrective ingredients to a soup botched by the dishwasher Linguini (Lou Romano).

Mon dieu! The soup is delicious, but the new owner, Skinner (Ian Holm), doesn't think Linguini can do it again. Linguini does, with Remy under his toque tugging his hair like marionette strings to make him make the right cooking moves. A culinary star and his secret weapon are born.

Skinner doesn't mind until Gusteau's newly discovered will bequeaths the restaurant to his illegitimate son, Linguini. Then Ratatouille becomes less about Remy than Linguini's effort to claim his rightful place and the heart of a cute sous-chef (Janeane Garofalo).

There's also a cadaverous food critic (Peter O'Toole) to impress when everything else is settled after 70 minutes of a nearly two-hour movie.

Ratatouille sets its fitful story against Parisian backgrounds lovingly rendered by director Bird and his computer animation crew. Their most original touch is discovering a way to animate the sense of smell. Whatever comedy Bird's screenplay offers is amusing but not exactly rollicking fun. At an advance screen, I observed more children losing interest than usual.

The expectation that Disney/Pixar will duplicate its previous magic diminishes with each wordy, static minute. After making movies about bugs, cars, tropical fish, monsters under the bed and superheroes, Disney/Pixar made one about a subject lots of kids and adults with kid sensibilities can't easily relate to. Unless, that is, they're Francophiles or Food Network junkies .

Steve Persall can be reached at (727) 893-8365 or persall@sptimes.com.

Grade: C+
Director: Brad Bird
Cast: Voices of Patton Oswalt, Lou Romano, Ian Holm, Janeane Garofalo, Peter O'Toole, Brad Garrett, Brian Dennehy
Screenplay: Brad Bird
Rating: G; mild peril
Running time: 110 min.
Elsewhere on the Web: To read about Persall's dispute with Disney over his observations on Ratatouille, or to comment on this or other movie-related topics, go to blogs.tampabay.com/movies.

[Last modified June 27, 2007, 22:31:06]