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Home » Free Voice Over Practice Scripts » Animation » Anton Ego – Ratatouille (2007) Monologue

Anton Ego – Ratatouille (2007) Monologue Voice Over Script

In many ways, the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment. We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read. But the bitter truth we critics must face, is that in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is probably more meaningful than our criticism designating it so. But there are times when a critic truly risks something, and that is in the discovery and defense of the new. The world is often unkind to new talent, new creations. The new needs friends.

Last night, I experienced something new, an extra-ordinary meal from a singularly unexpected source. To say that both the meal and its maker have challenged my preconceptions about fine cooking is a gross understatement. They have rocked me to my core. In the past, I have made no secret of my disdain for Chef Gusteau’s famous motto: ‘Anyone can cook.’ But I realize, only now do I truly understand what he meant. Not everyone can become a great artist, but a great artist can come from anywhere. It is difficult to imagine more humble origins than those of the genius now cooking at Gusteau’s, who is, in this critic’s opinion, nothing less than the finest chef in France. I will be returning to Gusteau’s soon, hungry for more.

TOP-10 Scripts from Edge Studio's Voice Over Script Library

Elder scrolls v: skyrim – opening dialogue.

[Skyrim opens with an Imperial wagon driving four prisoners down a snowy mountain pass. All are seated and bound; the one dressed in finery is gagged.]

Ralof: Hey, you. You’re finally awake. You were trying to cross the border, right? Walked right into that Imperial ambush, same as us, and that thief over there.

Lokir: D**n you Stormcloaks. Skyrim was fine until you came along. Empire was nice and lazy. If they hadn’t been looking for you, I could’ve stolen that horse and been half way to Hammerfell. You there. You and me — we should be here. It’s these Stormcloaks the Empire wants.

Ralof: We’re all brothers and sisters in binds now, thief.

Imperial Soldier: Shut up back there!

[Lokir looks at the gagged man.]

Lokir: And what’s wrong with him?

Ralof: Watch your tongue! You’re speaking to Ulfric Stormcloak, the true High King.

Lokir: Ulfric? The Jarl of Windhelm? You’re the leader of the rebellion. But if they captured you… Oh gods, where are they taking us?

Ralof: I don’t know where we’re going, but Sovngarde awaits.

Lokir: No, this can’t be happening. This isn’t happening.

Ralof: Hey, what village are you from, horse thief?

Lokir: Why do you care?

Ralof: A Nord’s last thoughts should be of home.

Lokir: Rorikstead. I’m…I’m from Rorikstead.

[They approach the village of Helgen. A soldier calls out to the lead wagon.]

Imperial Soldier: General Tullius, sir! The headsman is waiting!

General Tullius: Good. Let’s get this over with.

Lokir: Shor, Mara, Dibella, Kynareth, Akatosh. Divines, please help me.

Ralof: Look at him, General Tullius the Military Governor. And it looks like the Thalmor are with him. D**n elves. I bet they had something to do with this. This is Helgen. I used to be sweet on a girl from here. Wonder if Vilod is still making that mead with juniper berries mixed in. Funny…when I was a boy, Imperial walls and towers used to make me feel so safe.

[A man and son watch the prisoners pull into town.]

Haming: Who are they, daddy? Where are they going?

Torolf: You need to go inside, little cub.

Haming: Why? I want to watch the soldiers.

Torolf: Inside the house. Now.

Galadriel’s Opening Monologue – The Lord of the Rings

Galadriel: (speaking partly in Elvish)

(I amar prestar aen.)

The world is changed.

(Han matho ne nen.)

I feel it in the water.

(Han mathon ned cae.)

I feel it in the earth.

(A han noston ned gwilith.)

I smell it in the air.

Much that once was is lost, for none now live who remember it.

It began with the forging of the Great Rings. Three were given to the Elves, immortal, wisest and fairest of all beings. Seven to the Dwarf-Lords, great miners and craftsmen of the mountain halls. And nine, nine rings were gifted to the race of Men, who above all else desire power. For within these rings was bound the strength and the will to govern each race. But they were all of them deceived, for another ring was made. Deep in the land of Mordor, in the Fires of Mount Doom, the Dark Lord Sauron forged a master ring, and into this ring he poured his cruelty, his malice and his will to dominate all life.

One ring to rule them all.

One by one, the free lands of Middle-Earth fell to the power of the Ring, but there were some who resisted. A last alliance of men and elves marched against the armies of Mordor, and on the very slopes of Mount Doom, they fought for the freedom of Middle-Earth. Victory was near, but the power of the ring could not be undone. It was in this moment, when all hope had faded, that Isildur, son of the king, took up his father’s sword.

Sauron, enemy of the free peoples of Middle-Earth, was defeated. The Ring passed to Isildur, who had this one chance to destroy evil forever, but the hearts of men are easily corrupted. And the ring of power has a will of its own. It betrayed Isildur, to his death.

And some things that should not have been forgotten were lost. History became legend. Legend became myth. And for two and a half thousand years, the ring passed out of all knowledge. Until, when chance came, it ensnared another bearer.

It came to the creature Gollum, who took it deep into the tunnels of the Misty Mountains. And there it consumed him. The ring gave to Gollum unnatural long life. For five hundred years it poisoned his mind, and in the gloom of Gollum’s cave, it waited. Darkness crept back into the forests of the world. Rumor grew of a shadow in the East, whispers of a nameless fear, and the Ring of Power perceived its time had come. It abandoned Gollum, but then something happened that the Ring did not intend. It was picked up by the most unlikely creature imaginable: a hobbit, Bilbo Baggins, of the Shire.

For the time will soon come when hobbits will shape the fortunes of all.

To Sit In Solemn Silence

To sit in solemn silence in a dull, dark, dock,

In a pestilential prison, with a life-long lock,

Awaiting the sensation of a short, sharp, shock,

From a cheap and chippy chopper on a big black block!

The Dark Knight (Joker’s “Chaos” Monologue)

Do I really look like a guy with a plan, Harvey?

I don’t have a plan …

The mob has plans. The cops have plans.

You know what I am, Harvey? I am a dog chasing cars… I wouldn’t know what to do with one if I caught it.

I just do things. I am just the wrench in the gears. I hate plans.

Yours, theirs, everyone’s. Maroni has plans. Gordon has plans.

Schemers trying to control their worlds.

I am not a schemer. I show the schemer how pathetic their attempts to control things really are.

So when I say that you and your girlfriend was nothing personal, you know I am telling the truth.

I just did what I do best. I took your plan and turned it on itself.

Look what I have done to this city with a few drums of gas and a couple of bullets.

Nobody panics when the expected people gets killed. Nobody panics when things go according to plan, even if the plan is horrifying.

If I tell the press that tomorrow a gangbanger will get shot or a truckload of soldiers will be blown up, nobody panics. – because it’s all part of the plan.

But when I say that one little old mayor will die, everybody lose their minds.

Introduce a little anarchy, you upset the established order and everything becomes chaos.

I am agent of chaos.

And you know the thing about chaos Harvey?

“IT is FAIR.”

Old Spice – “The Man Your Man Can Smell Like”

Hello, ladies, look at your man, now back to me, now back at your man, now back to me. Sadly, he isn’t me, but if he stopped using ladies scented body wash and switched to Old Spice, he could smell like he’s me. Look down, back up, where are you? You’re on a boat with the man your man could smell like. What’s in your hand, back at me. I have it, it’s an oyster with two tickets to that thing you love. Look again, the tickets are now diamonds. Anything is possible when your man smells like Old Spice and not a lady. I’m on a horse.

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'Ratatouille': A portrait of an artist as a culinary rat

Reviewed by A.O. Scott

June 29, 2007

Ratatouille Directed by Brad Bird (U.S.)

The moral of "Ratatouille" is delivered by a critic: a gaunt, unsmiling fellow named Anton Ego who composes his acidic notices in a coffin-shaped room and who speaks in the parched baritone of Peter O'Toole. "Not everyone can be a great artist," Ego muses. "But a great artist can come from anywhere."

Quite so. Written and directed by Brad Bird and displaying the usual meticulousness associated with the Pixar brand, "Ratatouille," which is to be released around the world over the next four months, is a nearly flawless piece of popular art, as well as one of the most persuasive portraits of an artist ever committed to film. It provides the kind of deep, transporting pleasure, at once simple and sophisticated, that movies at their best have always promised.

Its sensibility, implicit in Ego's aphorism, is both exuberantly democratic and unabashedly elitist, defending good taste and aesthetic accomplishment not as snobbish entitlements but as universal ideals. Like "The Incredibles," Bird's earlier film for Pixar, "Ratatouille" celebrates the passionate, sometimes aggressive pursuit of excellence, an impulse it also exemplifies.

The hero (and perhaps Bird's alter ego) is Remy (Patton Oswalt), a young rat who lives somewhere in the French countryside and conceives a passion for fine cooking. Raised by garbage-eaters, he is drawn toward a more exalted notion of food by the sensitivity of his own palate and by the example of Auguste Gusteau (Brad Garrett), a famous chef who insists — more in the manner of Julia Child than of his real-life haute cuisine counterparts — that "anyone can cook."

What Remy discovers is that anyone, including his uncultured brother, can be taught to appreciate intense and unusual flavors. (How to translate the reactions of the nose and tongue by means of sound and image is a more daunting challenge, one that the filmmakers, including Michael Giacchino, author of the marvelous musical score, meet with effortless ingenuity.) Remy's budding culinary vocation sets him on a lonely course, separating him from his clannish, philistine family and sending him off, like so many young men from the provinces before him, to seek his fortune in Paris. That city, from cobblestones to rooftops, is brilliantly imagined by the animators.

And, as usual in a Pixar movie, a whole new realm of physical texture and sensory detail has been conquered for animation. "Finding Nemo" found warmth in the cold-blooded, scaly creatures of the deep; "Cars" brought inert metal to life. At first glance, "Ratatouille" may look less groundbreaking, since talking furry rodents are hardly a novelty in cartoons. But the innovations are nonetheless there, in the fine grain of every image: in the matted look of wet rat fur and the bright scratches in the patina of well-used copper pots, in the beads of moisture on the surface of cut vegetables and the sauce-stained fabric of cooks' aprons. Video More Video » var m_appUrl = 'http://graphics8.nytimes.com/feedroom/nytc3/shell.html'; var m_skinType = 'oneclip'; // or sectionfront or oneclip var m_storyId = '5644da17f714b5fe2989350e60ec2a1b1505871c'; // must be set to empty string if not used var m_channelId = "; // must be set to empty string if not used // NYTC - Begin generic embed code for the three skins try { switch (m_skinType) { case "oneclip": m_width = 336; m_height = 376; break; case "front": m_width = 337; m_height = 446; break; case "sectionfront": m_width = 395; m_height = 355; break; default: // default to oneclip m_width = 336; m_height = 376; } m_appUrl = m_appUrl + "?" + "skin=" + m_skinType + (m_channelId.length > 0 ? "&fr_chl=" + m_channelId:"") + (m_storyId.length > 0 ? "&fr_story=" + m_storyId :""); var ifrPlayer = ""; document.write(ifrPlayer); } catch (jsErr) { document.write("); }

Individually, the rats are appealing enough, but the sight of dozens of them swarming through pantries and kitchens is appropriately icky, and Bird acknowledges that interspecies understanding may have its limits.

Perhaps because animation, especially the modern computer-assisted variety, is the work of so many hands and the product of so much invested capital, we are used to identifying animated movies with their corporate authors: Disney, DreamWorks, Pixar and so on. But while the visual effects in "Ratatouille" show a recognizable company stamp, the sensibility that governs the story is unmistakably Bird's. A veteran of "The Simpsons" and a journeyman writer for movies and television, he has emerged as an original and provocative voice in American filmmaking.

He is also, at least implicitly, a severe critic of the laziness and mediocrity that characterize so much popular culture. He criticizes partly by example, by avoiding the usual kid-movie clichés and demonstrating that a clear, accessible story can also be thoughtful and unpredictable. "Ratatouille" features no annoying sidekick and no obtrusive celebrity voice-work, and while Remy is cute, he can also be prickly, demanding and insecure.

Moreover, his basic moral conflict — between family obligation and individual ambition — is handled with unusual subtlety and complexity, so that the reassurances and resolutions of the movie's end feel earned rather than predetermined.

And while the film buzzes with eye-pleasing action and incident — wild chases, hairbreadth escapes, the frenzied choreography of a busy kitchen — it does not try to overwhelm its audience with excessive noise and sensation. Instead Bird integrates story and spectacle with the light, sure touch that Vincente Minnelli brought to his best musicals and interweaves the tale of Remy's career with beguiling subplots and curious characters.

Since no Parisian restaurant will let a rat work in its kitchen, Remy strikes a deal with a hapless low-level worker named Linguini (Lou Romano), who executes Remy's recipes by means of an ingenious (and hilarious) form of under-the-toque puppetry. Linguini's second mentor is Colette (Janeane Garofalo), a tough sous-chef who unwittingly becomes the rodent's rival for Linguini's allegiance. Even minor figures — assistant cooks, waiters, a hapless health inspector — show remarkable individuality.

At stake in "Ratatouille" is not only Remy's ambition but also the hallowed legacy of Gusteau, whose ghost occasionally floats before Remy's eyes and whose restaurant is in decline. Part of the problem is Gusteau's successor, Skinner (Ian Holm), who is using the master's name and reputation to market a line of mass-produced frozen dinners.

Against him, Remy and Bird take a stand in of an artisanal approach that values both tradition and individual talent: classic recipes renewed by bold, creative execution. The movie's grand climax, and the source of its title, is the preparation of a rustic dish made of common vegetables — a dish made with ardor and inspiration and placed, as it happens, before a critic.

And what, faced with such a ratatouille, is a critic supposed to say? Sometimes the best response is the simplest. Sometimes "thank you" is enough.