Truly Dreadful Film

Am i the only one who thinks........Average?

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

Remy (Patton Oswalt) and brother Emile (Peter Sohn) are rats doing a presentation of why rats and people should be friends. It's a Pixar 11 minute companion short to Ratatouille. It explains the Black Rat and the Black Death that came with its flees. They are later pushed out by the Norwegian Brown Rat which came from China. Remy and Emile are Brown Rats. Spreading globally following mankind, they are hunted by humanity.The chemistry between Remy and Emile is fun. The information is presented in a fun, irreverent way. It's a very nice short and works perfectly accompanying the movie.

But this 11-minute short film tries its best to change that fact. It is connected with Ratatouille, but if you have seen other short films based on Pixar or animated movie in general, these are usually a concrete addition to the story involving some of the main characters. This is not really the case here. The human characters from Pixar are not featured in here, but the rats are. But it's really more of a history lesson to audiences. Remy and Emile give us a short summary of why rats are not as bad as everybody says. This involved references dating back to Queen Vistoria, the Plague and even the Beatles. It's a decent short film all in all, but I would not say it is a must-see, not even for people who loved "Ratatouille". It's just so different than the feature movie, in terms of story as well as animation style. It's very fast and creative, but delivers the information almost too quickly to really remember any of these when the film is over. And I did not like the ending with the rushed-in monologue. Still, a solid watch. By the way, the writer and director is Jim Capobianco, who also worked on the "Ratatouille" screenplay and got an Academy award nomination for his effort there. Do I perceive rats differently now after watching this? No, I don't. But that is only because I liked them before already. A lot.

If you have the DVD of Ratatouille, then you would have this short animated "documentary" showing a short history of rats. Presented by brothers (from the film) Remy (Patton Oswalt) and Emil (Peter Sohn), they plead the case for rats by illustrating the historical and scientific facts about the species and their interaction with humans. These include the plague, their strength, being pets, being experimented on - because they have the same combination of organs as humans, and some more stuff. Also starring Lou Romano as Linguini, Tony Russel as Disclaimer Guy, Sigmund Vik as The Norwegian Rat, Jim Capobianco as Director voice and a quick bit of footage from A Bug's Life with John Ratzenberger as P.T. Flea. It is obviously better to see Ratatouille before this. Good!

This is an extra from the DVD release of RATATOUILLE. It is a documentary about rats that some might find stuffy--like some sort of public service lecture or an episode of BILL NYE THE SCIENCE GUY. However, since I am a history teacher, I liked it--particularly the segment on the Black Death. Plus, while the text of the film is indeed dull, the graphics and laughs are excellent (I particularly liked the obscure reference to Francois Truffaut). Interestingly, while the movie RATATOUILLE is pure CG, this features what looks like traditional hand-drawn animation--and very high quality animation it is. So even if you don't like the topic or dialog, you can't help but respect the animation.Who says learning can't be fun?