Ratatouille

Ratatouille ****

Directed by Brad Bird
Written by Brad Bird

Starring:
Patton Oswalt as Remy (voice)
Ian Holm as Skinner (voice)
Lou Romano as Linguini (voice)
Brian Dennehy as Django (voice)
Peter Sohn as Emile (voice)
Peter O'Toole as Anton Ego (voice)
Brad Garrett as Gusteau (voice)
Janeane Garofalo as Colette (voice)
Will Arnett as Horst (voice)
Julius Callahan as Lalo/Francois (voice)
James Remar as Larousse (voice)
John Ratzenberger as Mustafa (voice)
Teddy Newton as Lawyer (voice)
Tony Fucile as Pompidou/Health Inspector (voice)

110 Minutes(Rated G).
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"Ratatouille" is easily the best Pixar movie since "Finding Nemo." I am not in that club of people that thought "The Incredibles" was the best computer animation film ever made, and I thought "Cars" was lacking just a little bit. But this is a winner every single minute its playing. Maybe I liked it because not only does it allow us to watch a world that we've never seen before (even though there were rats used in the film "Flushed Away"), but it also meshes that with real people, and makes this seem actually a little possible. The whole talking cars world was just a little too far out of the impossible, and it really did take a lot to accept that-something I still haven't done. But with an intelligent concept, a penchant for humor for the kids and the adults, and beautiful animation, Brad Bird has created yet another winner, and has set the bar high for next year's Pixar installment by the "Toy Story" and "Finding Nemo" crew-"Wall-E," which you are able to see a trailer for before the feature.

"Ratatouille" is the story of Remy, a common street rat that just cannot understand how his father, brother, and the rest of the rat colony are able to eat disgusting garbage. Remy has been blessed with the gift of smell, and only eats when he is able to find something worth eating. After an incident involving an old lady with a rifle and poison gas, Remy ends up separated from his family, and finds himself in the city of Paris. When he finds the restaurant that his chef hero Gusteau opened before he died, Remy befriends the garbage boy Linguini. Linguini cannot cook a single thing, but after a misunderstanding when Remy is cooking a soup, it happens to be a big hit and everybody is suddenly watching him. Linguini finds Remy and the two of them work a deal to become the greatest chef in Paris. Remy hides under his hat and pulls his hair to make Linguini like his puppet, and the two of them take the city by storm-and even make the three star restaurant suddenly get a little bit of acclaim. And then there is the sinister Head Chef who wants to take Gusteau's name and use it on frozen foods, until he discovers that there is more to Linguini that meets the eye, and there is a possible connection between him and the late chef.

Usually, especially of late, when I find myself watching these movies for the kids I watch with mostly a stoic and quiet reaction. For example, the recent 'Surf's Up" had me fascinated with how many minutes had passed as opposed to the action on the screen. But just about every single joke in "Ratatouille" hits the mark. And its a lot of fun to watch. Pixar has yet another winner, and this is just another in a long line of successes since the beginning of their company. And when its not all comedy, there is a certain depth in its lessons-one of them is towards the end and is a long speech about the work of a critic and his place when he is introduced to something new. It was almost enlightening. The voice work is pretty high profile without showing off. A lot of the times, these animated movies like to show off that they have big names doing the cast, but usually Pixar steers clear of those. And Patton Oswald is a lesser known actor, but has a familiar face. His work as Remy is perfect, and he somewhat resembles the character he is playing-and that is really hard to say without sounding mean. Peter O'Toole does some amazing job as a critic with a heart of ice who is ready to review the restaurant. It took me a while to place the voice to the character, and for some reason I kept thinking Christopher Lee. The others were pretty much unrecognizable, and all of the American actors seemed to be putting on fake French accents, so it was understandably difficult to point them out.

The animation sequences are, in a word, awesome. The chase sequences in Paris, the cooking montages, and just the rats in general. Even though the animators try to make the rats look cartooney and cute and friendly, the scenes where they are all in droves are very lifelike, and can make anyone grimace a little bit. I was also reading about a "wet chef" scene, and how the animators dressed someone up in a chef outfit and dumped water on him to see what a chef suit would look like on a wet body. I thought that was fascinating and wish I could spot that scene in a second viewing. Pixar has always upped the ante a little bit in all of their films, and they are clearly getting better and better. It's always hard for me to write a review of something that I give a high mark too. And the speech at the end of the film also does note the great fun one does have while writing something negative. But I just do not have anything bad to say about this. It's great fun. It's hilarious and clever and takes a rather short film premise and makes a successful feature about it. At almost two hours you almost barely take note of the time. I could actually recommend this animated tale to anybody of any age. Brad Bird has created the epitome of the family film, and "Ratatouille" is perfect for everyone.