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Reviews
Ratatoing (2007)
A Terrible Story Which Humans Really Don't Like
It's not as much of a ripoff of Ratatouille as one would expect, but that doesn't stop it from being awful. Video Brinquedo's mockbuster quasihit gave me more than I expected; unfortunately, that still isn't enough to make it the least bit good.
The plot involves Marcell Toing, the owner of the restaurant Ratatoing. It's called that because Marcell is a rat and his last name is Toing. Every Thursday, Marcell and his rat friends Carol and Greg (or is it Gregg?) go on a mission to steal food from the humans. Note that this is EXACTLY WHAT RATATOUILLE CONDEMNED.
One Thursday, something goes wrong: a group of AristocRATs (get it?), upset with Marcell because he publicly denounced them, decide to ruin him. The AristocRAT organization is actually a thinly veiled takeoff of the Church of Scientology, and it even has a similar logo. This was actually mildly funny, if only because of how daring it was. I suppose Video Brinquedo figured that any Scientologist who saw how poor the animation was would figure their company wasn't worth suing.
While Marcell, Carol and Greg(g) are out on a mission, the AristocRATs plant evidence in Ratatoing to show that Marcell is a criminal. However, when one of the AristocRATs (I think it was Maria, who was voiced by Veronica Taylor in the dub) realizes how Marcell and his friends are getting the ingredients, they decide to alert the humans to the presence of rats in their restaurant.
The next week, Marcell, Carol and Greg(g) can't get any ingredients because although there's cheese all over the place, it's all in traps set up across the room. Greg(g) notices a chocolate bar in the center of the room, but he is savagely killed and eaten by the new cat who was hired to guard the restaurant. Now, in a good movie (a Pixar movie), Greg(g)'s death would have been affectingly emotional, or at least teach some lesson. Here, no. Despite how surprisingly violent his death was, I was completely unmoved. Marcell and Carol also seem rather unaffected, despite the fact that Greg(g) was apparently their lifelong friend! I'm not going to talk any more about the story, as it just gets painfully bad from here on out. Let's just say that the ending is completely ridiculous and involves Marcell happily BEFRIENDING THE CAT WHO ATE GREG(G). I will, however, comment on the animation quality: really, really bad. Everything looks like plastic, the dub doesn't even attempt to match the lip flap, and Marcell's tail frequently goes through his head. I'm pretty sure I saw a chair disappear at one point in the middle of a scene.
For those of you who find bad movies funny, I recommend this. Otherwise, skip it and watch Ratatouille. In fact, even if you DO watch this, I recommend watching Ratatouille again, as you'll have a newly found appreciation for its greatness.
L: Change the World (2008)
You're Doing it Wrong!
This film uses the setting of the Death Note films, but lacks what made Death Note so fascinating: an intricate, constantly-changing storyline involving extremely intelligent enemies and their intellectual warfare. L change the WorLd feels kind of like a Godzilla film in which Godzilla is nowhere to be seen and Mothra appears for a few seconds at the beginning. I can't help but feel that it probably would have actually been a better movie if it were not Death Note-related.
Naomi Misora, Watari, Misa and Ryuuk were given cameos, but nothing much was really done with their characters and the film would hardly be any different if they never appeared. Furthermore, what happened to Kira's influence on the world?! Right after burning the Death Notes, we see L helping solve various murder cases, and the main antagonists belong to an organization that must have been planning their attack while Kira was quite active. Not a single mention of Kira's influence is made, and it seems entirely as though the writers forgot that crime was supposed to have gone way down because of people's fear of Kira.
Apparently the film's acting was praised in Japan, but anyone who speaks English will be pulled out of the film by the entirely emotionless (and quite frequent) English dialogue. I'm guessing that most of the actors didn't know what they were saying and were just pronouncing the sentences syllabically.
Numerous opportunities for connections with Death Note were thrown away. The only two throwbacks (aside from the early cameos) were a villain with a scar similar to Mello's and the fact that, at the end of the movie, L names the boy he's been taking care of Near. "Near is a good name," he says. Of course, L change the WorLd's Near looks and acts nothing like the Nate River of the series. When L was trying to figure out the meaning of the letters "MK", I was hoping (and expecting) them to stand for "Mihael Keehl", but there wasn't even a passing reference to the name for fans to recognize.
A couple of moments in the film that were supposed to be serious made me laugh out loud. The first was when L tried standing up straight with triumphant music playing... and several loud spinal cracking noises. The second was when L leaps from the stairs into the airplane in slow motion.
I do consider L change the WorLd worth seeing for Death Note aficionados, but I don't think most fans will feel it lives up to anything else in the franchise.