Ratatouille

I saw Ratatouille today and I thought it was amazing. Intelligent, funny, heart-warming, emotionally satisfying - I can't say enough good things about it. The animation is brilliant, the story has meaning, and the characters don't feel as if they've been dumbed down to target the younger audience, as seems to be the case with most of the kiddie fare produced these days. I was spellbound all the way through. This is a very likeable and well-made movie and I would have to say it is easily one of the best movies I have seen this year.

One thing I particularly appreciated was that the story felt less conventional than what I have come to expect from my cinema visits. Ratatouille's themes - such as "know yourself", "follow your dreams", "embrace new ideas" - were all presented in a non-preachy way, and this added to my overall impression of the movie as having a nice, simple charm. There wasn't any low-brow humour either, which I thought made a nice change.

The most surprising thing for me was that during one scene I found myself getting teary-eyed. This was not a sad scene, just an intensely emotional one. It seems to me that there are many things that I tend not to get emotionally involved in, so for a movie to bring about a strong reaction in me was a little out of the ordinary. It got me thinking that there are not enough intensely joyful moments in my life.

But that's another story. My final verdict of Ratatouille is: a thoroughly entertaining dose of escapism. You must go see it.