Rats!
I liked the half of Ratatouille I watched last week. So when I had to bribe an 8 year old, I thought, ‘Pixar Animation, pop corn and sugary drinks.Super winner combo’. I should have known better.
The first hint came when we were driving to the movie hall. S was finally over his excitement at the surprise and now with the tickets in his hand he began to think. “Maasi, what movie is this?” he asked. So I said ‘Ratatouille. Its about a rat who wants to be a cook’. He tried to match that back with what was written on the ticket. ‘Ratatweele?’ “No. Ratatui,’ I said. He thought for a minute. ‘Aapko Chak De India ke tickets nahin mile kya?’. Uh oh. Too late in recalling that this kid had loved Partner. Sigh. And here I am thinking Sallu should go to jail as much for making stupid movies as for killing sundry wildlife.
We reached the movie hall and once we’d stocked up on the junk food, we found our seats. The short movie began. Completely brilliant. Normally the brilliance does elicit some laughter from moi but S was amazing - bouncing on the edge of his seat, his high, loud, gurgle of a laugh echoing in the movie hall. Each time the alien trainee made a mistake in the abduction volume grew and the length of laugh was directly proportional to the number of times the poor abductee got banged around the house. Once I had got my breath back from laughing so hard. I began to have hope. I may not have made such a big mistake.
Then Ratatouille began. All the slapstick bits got much response from S but the french accented dialogue and its smartness are meant more for adult appreciation. Post interval S was reduced to asking me at 10 minute intervals ‘Ab aur kitna baaki hai?’ Its not that he hated it, he just didn’t love it. As for me, I loved Anton Ego - its his character that really puts the bite in the movie but Pixar has made better movies in the past and hopefully will make better ones in the future.