Pixar and Ratatouille

I just watched Ratatouille which is the new Pixar film. Pixar is beloved by seemingly everybody. All sorts of people from all sorts of places with any kind of academic or non-academic background are seemingly gushing over how good movies Pixar makes.

Ratatouille is the 6th Pixar movie I have seen. I have seen Toy Story 1 & 2, Monsters Inc., The Incredibles, Cars and now this. I have not been impressed with any of the movies, yet I have kept watching, just to keep up, because like I mentioned, everywhere I go people are praising these movies as works of art, and a savior for american cinema. Having just watched Ratatouille, I still can not begin to understand this point of view, and I thought I'd list off some of the major problems I have with Pixar movies, and then use Ratatouille as a concrete example.

1) The lack of drama. In all of the Pixar movies I have seen, the villain has always been more the focal point for comic relief than for some actual drama. More often than not their entire motivation will be financial, which while realistic, does not make for exciting drama. They also always seem to be very inferior to the protagonists of the pictures, usually conveyed by a chase scene where the villain is humiliated.

2) The fat sidekick. This is not something Pixar has originated nor championed more than any other movie-releasing entity, but something they have embraced that I personally think is not very interesting. There is always a slightly stupid sidekick, that is usually fat and dopey looking. They never reach any character of their own and a just there for the hero to play off of, and teach a lesson every once in awhile. This leads into my next reason:

3) Conventionality. The movies are just so formulaic, not just to the other Pixar movies, but to genre pictures that have existed for decades. You're never in doubt where something is going, and you are never surprised by where it goes. Alot of the movies are romantic comedies (or buddy flicks, which is basically the same thing without the hugs and kisses) and they follow the formula exactly. It's assembly-line writing that contains all the conventions that we have come to know and slightly despise.

In Ratatouille the villain is some ridiculous little chefman, who has the thickest french accent of everyone in the movie. Obviously for comical effect. But before we get to that we are introduced to a society of rats that, and I can only speak for myself, I definitely don't give a shit about. All of their problems and issues were specific to being rats, and how could you possibly relate to something like that? We are also introduced to the convention of the disapproving father, which is something I never understood. Why are fathers in movies always disapproving of everything, except their own line of work? It's ridiculous. Anyway, the main rat through a series of unfortunate and remarkably convenient events (which is not a big deal at all, it's just proof that this is not the divine screenwriting that it's usually made out to be) he ends up at a restaurant. The movie improves remarkably when we're introduced to the hero man of the piece, and we aren't subjected to Patton Oswalt's stingy voice. The rat becomes infinitely more likable when it's shutting the hell up, and the poor human man is actually quite charming and relatable himself. Unfortunately he never goes anywhere, and neither does the rat. Oh and the fat sidekick of the rats big brother does nothing either. He is stupid and endearing, just like half the characters in Toy Story and the big-teethed car in Cars.

Here comes the villain though, and drags the movie down to embarrasing kids fare. Another typically cutesy non-menacing person without any actual motivation bumbling through the picture. No drama, no sense of purpose, and not even any real laughs. In Ratatouille specifically I was gladly surprised that for once there was a real menacing presence in the movie portrayed by Peter O'Toole who was great. This person was worthy of being an actual villain, and did not seem inferior to our heroes. But unlike my own favorite animated movies (The Lion King and Prince of Egypt) they chicked out on even this entity and redeemed him through some ridiculous happenstance. The rat cooks him the one dish that somehow makes him reconnect emotionally with his childhood and his dead mother - and he does it out of nowhere. After this he is as cuddly as a teddy-bear. I mean in The Lion King you have a villain who is eaten by the class he himself tries to exploit for power throughout the movie - that's a villain. A tiny man with a loud voice and some financial benefits is not a villain. That's a joke, and it's what Pixar has been doing since forever.

Our two heroes get separated in the beginning of the third act, and Ratatouille even has the pathetic convention of a scene where the person who was in the wrong, excuses to the friend and explains how great a friend they are and how they mean the world to them - but he does it in the situation where the friend has taken revenge. How is this supposed to be art again? That's so fucking done.

Ratatouille is another animated Pixar movie that does nothing spectacular, works for kids but offers nothing for adults except for banality and superficiality. It looks very good in some places, but that doesn't save it from being standard fare. As I have stated before, if you think it's more than a simple comedy, you have to be a child.