I’ve never been to a sneak preview before, but noticed Ratatouille playing Saturday night here, so off we went with our near-3-year-old in tow.
It really wasn’t a wee-tot movie; our little one was more interested in racing the aisle than sitting still, even though he willingly sits and watches full-length DVDs at home of Cars, Finding Nemo, all the Shrek movies, etc. Possibly it was the lure of the aisle more than the unworthiness of the movie, but I still bet it was a little old for him.
But for we adults? It was marvelous! Many laugh-out-loud scenes, and the animation just gets better and better with every film. For me, Cars and A Bugs Life have been the best as far as the animation because no humans appeared in them. The animation, to me, hadn’t progressed far enough to properly depict humans in a lifelike way.
But here, in Ratatouille, humans fare much better because they aren’t trying to make them realistic, but more cartoonish caricatures. Hence we have a rather rat-like main character, Linguini, and several stylized people in the kitchen. (I don’t want to spoil it too much, but we can add spoiler boxes, for the benefit of those who want to read before watching.)
I saw it and agree with everything you say (except the part about the bored kid…please tell me you didn’t really let him run in the aisles, did you?) and especially agree that adults are probably going to enjoy this much more than younger children.
There’s another thread here, though it’s a bit old. This thread is much better since it’s for people who’ve seen the movie already.
This is what I said in that thread. Your comments are much better and more helpful. I didn’t want to give spoilers though, just a general indication of what I thought of the movie.
I also thought the depiction of Paris was gorgeous!
And, um, I didn’t precisely ‘let’ my little one run the aisles. There were escapes, yes, but he was for the most part contained, and sitting on the stairs did have an allure. (But ultimately the adventure did have to move outside the theater.)