Simply A Masterpiece

Fresh and Exciting

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

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.

Your Friend the Rat (2007) *** 1/2 (out of 4) Very funny and highly entertaining "learning" films has the rats from Pixar's RATATOUILLE telling us the history of rats and explaining why humans should make peace with them. We get to learn various things like how they help us in science experiments, how they are worshiped in India and we get to learn about their earliest days on Earth. I was really shocked to see how funny this short was and it really wanted to make me watch the feature, which I'm sure is a good thing. There were several jokes that had me laughing out loud including the wonderful one where the rats were hit with an atomic bomb and we're told they suffered no side effects but then we see them walk out with three heads on the one body. The black plague sequence was also extremely funny as well as the scenes where we learn that rats can get into your home by the toilet. I enjoyed that they also mixed up the animation a little here as it wasn't all CG. The final joke with the rats trying to keep the disclaimer off the screen also worked very well.

As a previous owner of fancy rats, I thoroughly enjoyed this accurate recap of the history of rats, and the artists' humorous take on it. Rats are a misunderstood species, given their connection to the plague. I think what the writers were trying to do was to point out to Westerners that our view on rats is based on generations of fear and bad information. It's unfortunate that the tone sounded "stuffy" or "preachy" to the other reviewers - I personally didn't think it did at all. Perhaps people were just not expecting a history lesson.Rats make great pets - they are independent like cats, smart and loyal like dogs. It still amazes me when people would come over to my house and be shocked that my rat has the run of the place. And shocked that she comes to me when I call her name. I've had to tell them many of the things that were in this film - now I can just refer them to this film and not have to repeat myself over and over.Aside from the content, the animation was great - a mix of CGI and traditional styles. I love the angular look of the traditional segments, which were reminiscent of the style of Chuck Jones.

This is one of the two shorts on the 2-Disc Special Edition of Ratatouille. I think it is one of those that you love or hate. It wasn't my cup of tea, but if you're a big fan of the flick itself, you may like it. I get that this may have been fun to do when working for a long time on one project, to blow off some steam, the way special effects people will sometimes playfully do key-frame stuff that obviously will not wind up being used in the film. And I'm, of course, not blind to how many different styles of animation that this uses, and how unusual that is. It is pretty creative, well-edited, never stands still. If you are not up for all the information(which I can neither confirm or deny the truth of, I don't know enough to judge it), or the intentionally and jokingly preachy tone, well, you'd better be up for the comedy, or this will not be for you. The voice acting is fine. I did not personally find this particularly funny, except for maybe the ending, though I can definitely imagine that others will. There's nothing offensive in this. I recommend this solely to those who think this might interest them. 6/10