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Ratatouille
He was a rat. Yet he wanted to be a chef.
Heh.
It’s an animated movie and when I first read the details in terms of starting times and film length, I noted the movie’s running time was 110. Understand that The Wise I had not been to a movie in over ten years but since I’ve stopped smoking and since Kaitlyn Mae was coming for a visit, I thought this cartoon film would be a great fit. Only I thought that 110 meant an hour and ten minutes. An hour and ten minutes is 70 minutes. That 110 meant 110 minutes, a good 40 minutes beyond my original mistaken estimate.
Kaitlyn is three years old but she’s generally well-behaved and if one keeps her busy brain occupied she can sit still for 70 minutes. It was after the movie had been playing for 70 minutes and seemed nowhere near the end that I realized what that 110 meant.
Kaitlyn had devoured a bucket of popcorn and still remained absorbed by the funny tale of a rat that would be a chef. She got antsy after another ten minutes. I took the child for a jaunt to the rest room and when we came back she settled back into the movie but that 110 minutes was about all the three year old could handle.
I consider it a tribute to the beauty of the animation and the fluidity of the plot that a three year old could sit through the movie’s entirety so well. For it was no easy feat to get the film’s protagonist away from his rat family feasting in the garbage dumps of Paris and into a world class Michelin four star restaurant.
I’m not convinced that Kaitlyn followed all the nuances of the film, and there were many, but she easily understood that this was a tale of a cartoon rat and something to do with a kitchen, knives and the possibly illegitimate son of a now deceased chef. That bit about illegitimacy is handled in a very subtle manner but enough was understood by even a young viewer that the plot kept flowing. The rat that would be a chef managed to surreptitiously help the son of a chef become a chef.
Oh, yes, and there’s a love angle. Heh.
It wasn’t easy building a plot that would have a rat controlling a would-be human chef but think tall chef’s hats that would effectively hide a culinary rat beneath. Think tufts of cartoon red hair that can be pulled right or can be pulled left by a rat hidden under the hat. Right means sauté; left means parboil.
This is a great movie for children and adults. It’s funny, colorful and impossibly cute. There are good guys and bad guys and did I tell you about the rat that wanted to be a chef?
This movie would be a great selection for a Friday night movie session for those younger than five. Pop some popcorn, get out some soda pop, lay a blanket on the floor, couple of pillows and pop in the “Ratatouille” DVD.
It’s clean family-oriented entertainment and even has a moral or two.
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