01. Now, I’m not a Pixar fangirl and I rarely see every movie they put out unless Audrey happens to buy it on DVD, but I’ve seen and immensely enjoyed stuff like Monsters Inc. and Finding Nemo and so I was expecting a movie on at least that level of enjoyment and I feel really cheated that I didn’t get that. I am also increasingly perplexed by the heaps and heaps of praise this movie is getting from critics because I feel like I saw a completely different movie than everyone else.
02. That said, it wasn’t a bad movie, it was just really, really average. There are always a lot of subtle, adult-level jokes sprinkled through Rated-G fare like this and for some reason this movie completely failed to deliver on that as expected. If there’s one thing you can usually count on from Pixar, it’s humour, and there is very little to be found here.
03. I can’t take the name Remy seriously because of stupid Remus Lupin fangirls.
04. The animation is really, really fantastic. This and Finding Nemo are their best aesthetically, I think. The hair didn’t look plastic!
05. Peter O’Toole was wonderful as the food critic. His voice lends itself wonderfully to that sort of menacing role. Speaking of which, I loved the critic’s flashback to his childhood when he ate the ratatouille, that was freaking hysterical.
06. Actually, going back to my second point, I think the reason I can usually stomach these types of kids movies as opposed to most live-action stuff aimed at kids is that these movies are always really clever, really smart, and don’t treat their audience like idiots. [By way of comparison, we saw a trailer for Daddy Day Camp which offered up some really sharp perspective regarding the two polarities of films for young audiences.] I didn’t feel treated like a mindless idiot, but I also didn’t feel like the movie thought the audience was terribly smart or savvy. It was too… quaint? I don’t know.
07. I really disliked the inconsistency of the narration, how it would be there and then disappear for ages and then come back for no apparent reason. Then about halfway through the movie it hit me that the narrator’s voice reminded me of Ray Liotta in Gooodfellas and I kept expecting there to be a long tracking shot of someone important getting to the dining room by way of a convoluted walk through the kitchens. I also would have been very happy of Joe Pesci had showed up, but that’s another issue all together.
08. I want to go back to Paris.
01. I agree. I don’t seek out every Pixar movie either. I didn’t care for Monsters, Inc., and this one was, as you say, disappointing.
03. Oh, gawd. Lupin fangirls. Kill it with fire.
07. OMG, it TOTALLY was GoodFellas narration. I should have realized when I saw it.