“Ratatouille is not only the best animated film of this year and the best animated film to land in American theaters since Spirited Away, it is the best work of Brad Bird‘s already legendary career, and the best American film of 2007 to date. If that is not enough, there are only a couple of films due this summer that have any hope of matching this film for quality.”
If the previous words were written by anyone but David Poland, I would be even more jazzed about Ratatouille (Disney, 6.29). But unfortunately they were in fact written by the man who couldn’t stop praising Dreamgirls, who told everyone that Quills was miraculous, who trashed Brokeback Mountain and United 93 and Zodiac, who banged the tin drum for Munich and who once wrote about shedding a tear (he may have mentioned more than one) over Finding Forrester.
Ratatouille may indeed be wonderful, but I’ll be the one to decide this yea or any after I see it this Saturday morning — five days from now.