Ratatouille

Ratatouille has probably one of the biggest and ballsy dramatic irony written for visual storytelling! If someone were to pitch you a movie that involves rats cooking in a restaurant, you would easily ask the person to leave and never come back. But that is exactly the idea Brad Bird went on with, and thank fucking God for that, a unique masterpiece was born!

Remy (voiced by Patton Oswalt) is a rat. Well, not your usual, everyday rat. He has a heightened sense of smell and taste. He reads, but most important of all, unlike his peers, he doesn't like stealing food. In turn, he wants to make his own food, you know… cooking! He even washes his hands before doing so, and he doesn't walk on all fours to keep his cooking hands clean! But since Remy is a rat, obviously his dream is impossible. To render matters worse, his father doesn't like it. His exceptional talent is used for testing the presence of poison instead… until the day comes for his ultimate journey to meet his ultimate destiny!

Ratatouille is what we call a classic film - a film that doesn't pretend and delivers scenes that are absolute bangers, in other words, simple, necessary yet cinematic! With the underlying theme of "You can be whatever you dream to be no matter your past and background" in hand, the writer-director made sure he reflected it through the primary plot, subplots, characters and events, which all eventually winds back linking to the protagonist Remy! There's always the turf of war with Remy's siding with humans that comes directly as a result of the amazing chemistry he shares with the human protagonist Linguini (voiced by Lou Romano). From the first moment of mistakenly made soup, an unlikely yet adorable friendship is formed between these two, and from hereon, the ride is non-stop exhilarating than it already was! The feature is also absolutely energy-filled, with sequences moving at breakneck pace, just like how rats scurry around! The chase episode between Chef (voiced by Ian Holm) and Remy for the inheritance document theft is one such example! Sometimes as a result of how fluidly fast it is, every single exposition that's thrown on the way goes seamlessly unnoticed!

One of the most important aspects of Ratatouille that lends itself to the heaven of greatness is that it never shies away from the training. Yes, an elaborate amount of time is spent on the actual grapple on the dirt! Most movies skim through this section, but we go through each and every step here that shows how Remy teaches Linguini on the cooking floor from beneath the toque before the both 'merge' and operate as one entity! Lifting hair strands to signal in-tandem hand movements is a brilliant notion! And the other facet of great storytelling that Ratatouille didn't baulk to show more is the struggles, challenges and conflicts! Remy learning from his mentor how to be a proper chef even at the time of famine, Remy captured by Chef when Anton's (voiced by Peter O'Toole) waiting at the restaurant for his food with no cooks in the kitchen, rat army stopping the evading health inspector plus the distance that grows between Remy and Linguini after the latter achieves fame for all the cooking Remy has been doing are instances!

The Ratatouille dish that drags Anton right back to his poor childhood days is truly a gut punch! In the end, Remy eventually gets his due recognition as the best chef in France, with rats and humans coexisting prosperously in the new restaurant titled after the film! Brute rat punching red meat alike in a boxing ring, chimney-cooking, cheese and strawberry flavor combination, Remy losing his family as he frantically paddles on the recipe book to catch up, the almost-secret-spilling session that turns into a kiss, Auguste Gusteau's various appearances be it in the form of billboard, page caricature or advertisement figures with different nationalistic accents and the entire rat family helping Remy prepare dinner during the climax are some of the most creative ideas ever, ever, ever!

The motion picture itself is a posh, 5-star Italian restaurant sitting in the middle of Paris facing the Eiffel Tower! All your senses know and recognize that every technical brilliance presented in front of you is unbeatably beautiful, be it the cinematography, score, colors, animation… everything! But all these are mashed so well together that they move as one cohesive feature that you will not notice any individual technical ingredient stick out! And that ladies and gentlemen, is the highest praise a movie can get ever get!