Monday, June 18, 2007 |
18:06 - Sounds like a dish
http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117933921.html?categoryid=31&cs=1
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Every studio has its high points and its weak moments; for years now I've been waiting patiently (if with trepidation) for Pixar to produce its first big-time flop. But now, at the risk of jinxing it, it seems their portfolio is large enough that we can identify which ones are less than stellar outings, and when those are otherwise much-loved films like Cars and Finding Nemo, maybe I can uncover my eyes and revel in the fact that we've already seen the low points. And they're not that low.
Trade reviews tasked with spreading pre-release buzz can't quite be trusted to accurately gauge wide public reaction; but even so, this one sure makes Ratatouille sound like it's got Pixar back up on its A game:
After the less than universally admired "Cars," Pixar's eighth feature sees the Disney-owned toon studio in very fine form, and confirms Bird's reputation as one of the medium's most engaging storytellers. Compared to his woefully underseen "The Iron Giant" and Oscar-winning "The Incredibles," "Rata-touille" may be smaller in scope, but in telling the story of a very smart rat striving to enter the very human world of French haute cuisine, it shares with its predecessors an affinity for gifted outsiders seeking personal fulfillment.
Pic also extends two of the great themes of "The Incredibles": the pursuit of excellence over mediocrity (a standard that has long distinguished Pixar from rivals and imitators) and the importance -- or rather, the unavoidability -- of family ties. Remy, a thin blue rat who lives with his unruly rodent clan in the French countryside, finds himself torn between these two commitments as the film opens.
Ah, Brad Bird. Is there anything you can't do?
(Apparently Tony Fucile—Disney animator emeritus—is doing voice work now, as is Bird himself.)
I always feel vaguely funny about admiring heroes who are still alive and producing; it's like in baseball, where no matter how many home runs Bonds hits, it still doesn't feel like I'm living in the age of Mays and McCovey. As dismal a shape as the animation industry is in these days, it seems fatuous to think of it as a Golden Age; but one Pixar can make up for a hundred contract units cranking out stuff like The Wild and Barnyard. Thank goodness.
Via Cartoon Brew, which also links to this review:
Ratatouille has negative virtues, too. Pop-culture pokes and nudges, so tiresome in the DreamWorks cartoons and Pixar's Cars, are mercifully absent; neither are there any obtrusive movie-star voices. There's an odd sprinkling of French characters who are presumably speaking French but with a French accent, and Colette's accent is a little too thick, sometimes getting in the way of a joke. In general, though, the voices seem to have been chosen with the characters clearly in mind, in the manner of the early Disney features, and certainly not for the voice actors' marquee value.
A movie made to go against the hip focus-group-tested trends (like the rampant 80s nostalgia-fetishism that Seth Green seems to have singlehandedly created by never outgrowing playing with action figures, which was funny at first but now you can't get away from) and toward established principles of beautiful animation and engaging storytelling? I can't wait.
(That second review also makes some interesting negative points, but the way it tracks certain storytelling tendencies across personalities like Bird and Lasseter—to me—just adds to the fascination. This will all make a great coffee table book in about fifteen years... and an art college major in thirty.)
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