Cute rat tale has some peril and potentially scary moments.
Parents Need to Know
Why Age 6+?
Any Positive Content?
Violence & Scariness
some
Remy is hunted by an angry, gun-toting grandma and knife-throwing chefs. A gun is fired. One chef is rumored to be an ex-con and looks menacingly at the rest of the kitchen staff. Characters crash through windows, are struck by lightning, are hit, and are trapped. The sewer sequence early in the movie is somewhat scary. Remy is put in the sealed jar and nearly thrown in a river to drown.
Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.
Linguini learns to give credit to his rat pal, and Remy realizes that his family connections are more important than his human ones; together, they work as a team to succeed. On the downside, two chefs in the kitchen are very hostile to Linguini, which could make some kids uncomfortable. Themes include perseverance and integrity.
Positive Role Models
some
Remy doesn't let the fact that he's an unconventional chef prevent him from following his dreams, and Linguini learns to stand up for what he believes in. They both make mistakes, but they learn from them. There are several jokes at the expense of the French ("Sorry to be rude, but we're French" and so on).
Educational Value
very little
Kids can't help but pick up a few pointers on cooking and food, but the movie's primary intent is to entertain, not educate.
Parents Need to Know
Parents need to know that, like all of Pixar's other films, Ratatouille includes nuanced humor (about the French, haute cuisine, food critics, and so on) and references aimed directly at adults. Kids will miss most of these references but most likely will still enjoy the plot and animal characters. Not surprisingly for an animated kids' movie, the protagonist, Linguini, is an orphan -- although at least he's a young adult and not a child. There's some moderate peril involving the rats and weapon-wielding humans that may frighten sensitive and younger viewers; the sewer sequence is particularly tense and potentially scary, as is the gun-toting grandma. Two characters kiss, and there are a few mild insults, such as "stupid" and "loser," and one "hell." To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails.
This movie held my kids attention. It’s got a decent message but was pretty typical Disney/Pixar fare which is very pedestrian to my taste. Definitely not something I would watch on my own or encourage my kids to choose again. I don’t think they will ask for it again either.
The gun violence at the start was excessive, unnecessary and felt very American for a lack of a better word. A shotgun toting granny named Mabel doesn’t make me think ‘France’ that’s for sure. It was also scary for my 5 year old who isn’t used to casual gun violence (we don’t live in the USA) but she got over it.
The sex, alcohol and language complaints people expressed here seem totally over-blown though. There’s nothing here that’s going to harm your kids. Do some parents not kiss in front of their kids or something?
Also what’s wrong with saying hell if you’re referencing the actual place hell? Wow, sometimes I am shocked by peoples priorities. The number of reviewers who ignore the violence but complain about a single ‘hell’ or a ‘passionate kiss’ between adults is whacky to me. But I guess that’s why we have sites like this to share different viewpoints so people can make up their own minds about what their kids should or shouldn’t watch.
Why does a movie for young children need to include a gun? They could have found other silly creative ways to achieve the story line without a gun.
What's the Story?
RATATOUILLE follows the culinary adventures of Remy (voiced by comedian Patton Oswalt), a unique rat who can't stomach eating garbage. He wants the good stuff -- truffle oil and fine artisan cheeses -- which brands him the snobby black sheep of his crew. After Remy's family is driven from their habitat by a gun-toting grandma, he emerges onto the streets of Paris, where he's visited by the ghost of renowned, recently deceased uber-chef Gusteau (Brad Garrett), who was famous for the populist saying "Anyone can cook." Remy is drawn to Gusteau's now three-star restaurant (it lost a star after Gusteau died), where he feels right at home ... before being sighted and nearly killed by flying knives. Remy, quick with the spices, saves young kitchen helper Linguini (Lou Romano) from ruining the soup of the day, and the two form an odd-couple bond. From then on, Remy becomes part Mister Miyagi, part puppeteer as he helps Linguini cook up delicious specials that put Gusteau's back on the culinary map. But as Linguini soaks in his new fame as the chef du jour, Remy grows increasingly bitter that someone else is taking credit for his recipes. The film's nemeses are Gusteau's new head chef -- an angry little dictator (Ian Holm) who wants to make millions selling a line of prepackaged frozen foods -- and Anton Ego (Peter O'Toole), a food critic who loves writing negative reviews.
The story doesn't have the emotional depth of The Incredibles or Finding Nemo, but the animation is every bit as dazzling. Every scene of the chefs shredding, peeling, dicing, and stirring is vibrant and layered. And the moment Ego tastes the titular dish is so delicious a visual reference that it deserves to be a surprise. Kids may ultimately favor the child-centric appeal of Toy Story or the vroom-vroom adventure of Cars, but grown-ups will find a reason to ask for seconds of Ratatouille.
At this point, it's pretty much a given that families and young children will line up to see anything made by Pixar, which seems incapable of producing a dud. But Ratatouille, like director Brad Bird's family adventure The Incredibles, is the rare animated film that could just as easily captivate an audience full of childless adults. Granted, the world of haute French cuisine is an unlikely setting for a kid-friendly flick, but Bird makes it irresistible.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about what made kids want to see Ratatouille. Does it matter that the title is hard to spell/pronounce or that the main characters are rats?
Do kids know the Pixar brand name? Does that make them more likely to want to see a movie?
Families also can discuss the film's theme: pretending to be something you're not. Linguini takes credit for Remy's cooking ideas to look like a chef, and Remy turns away from his rat family to be with his human friends and eat good food. How does pretending catch up to each of them?
Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by
suggesting a diversity update.
Common Sense Media's unbiased ratings are created by expert reviewers and aren't influenced by the product's creators or by any of our funders, affiliates, or partners.
By Sandie Angulo Chen
,
based on child development research. How do we rate?
