I really enjoyed the recent Ratatouille too, which we watched with our small group at GV in Plaza Singapura. Like Monsters Inc., I especially liked this also Pixar film largely because of its refreshing story of a mouse who dreams of being a chef. The story is a pseudo-fantasy. But once you get past the notion that rats can cook, it doesn’t subsequently break away from physical reality – i.e. the mice still can’t talk to humans, and there’s a hilarious sequence near the film’s start where the dialog between two mice are heard as squeaks by a human LOL.
There’re also lots of little nice touches: like how Remy declines to walk on all fours, how he and his owner Linguini establish their mode of communication, and how Linguini’s love interest blossoms with Collette.
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The last one in the list isn’t generally acknowledged to be a ‘great’ animated picture. It’s Surf’s Up; a film about a penguin who dreams of surfing. This was one of two Penguin animated pictures to get released – I haven’t seen Happy Feet yet – at about the same time-period.
I thought the documentary-styled and hand-held perspectives worked very well, and as I understand was really intended as a parody of surfing documentaries.
The characters were genuinely likable too and felt very human: Cody the penguin is brash and a little obsessed with surfing, his worshipped hero is washed-out Big Z but returns to mentor and guide him, Lani a life-guard penguin who is Cody’s potential love interest, the three baby penguins who keep getting interviewed by the documentary crew, and a hilariously-played bully current surfing champ Tank “The Shredder” Evans.
Of worthy mention also is the first two Shrek films, Kung Fu Panda (which is my #4 favorite), Ice Age (largely because of Scrat!) and The Incredibles.
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