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Spoiler Alert!  The rat wins!

So this week, if you couldn’t guess by the title, I watched both Ratatouille and Beowulf. Both were CG animated movies. Both featured main characters that were naked for a good part of the movie. Unfortunately, only one of them was really that good.

Ratatouille is a return to form for Pixar after the disappointing Cars. Granted, a disappointing Pixar movie is still better than most other studios’ movies - but stealing the plot verbatim from Doc Hollywood just isn’t like Pixar. Ratatouille is much more original, features more likable characters and truly jaw-dropping animation.  Even tho I’ve only seen it once (so far), I think it’s safe to say it’s the best Pixar movie since Finding Nemo. If you haven’t seen it yet, you owe it to yourself to do so.

Beowulf, on the other hand, is skipable. It isn’t *horrible*, but it isn’t that great either. It’s very slow-paced for one thing. The beginning drags on and on with nothing notable happening, and then once something does happen….it’s over quickly and you’re back to the movie dragging again. Another problem is the animation. They used the same motion-capture technique that was used a few years back in The Polar Express. They still haven’t fixed the problems with it tho - the characters go from looking realistic to creepy and back throughout the movie.

Finally, the movie ends - and although I was glad to see that it was over, the ending was very abrupt. It doesn’t help that after researching the epic poem that it’s based on, I found that the movie almost completely changes the plot - the only thing it really has in common with the poem is that it contains the same characters.

The 3D effect, which is probably the main draw to the movie, was done pretty well. There aren’t very many “duck” moments in the movie, where you really feel like something’s coming at you. But the 3D effect, even though used subtly, is nice. It’s not nice enough to pay the inflated ticket price to see a mediocre movie though - I’d recommend skipping it.