Not long ago, critics disparaged writer/director Brad Bird for leaving traditional, hand-drawn animation behind to collaborate with Pixar Animation Studios on his second feature-length film, The Incredibles (after The Iron Giant which scored positive reviews among critics and the animation fans but failed to attract general moviegoers). Once critics, animation fans, and general audiences saw The Incredibles, Bird was lauded for bringing his  animation background, his storytelling skills, and adult-oriented verbal humor to an already successful animation studio. Months later, The Incredibles took the Award for Best Animated Feature at the Academy Awards. With so much critical and commercial success, expectations were justifiably high for Bird's next collaboration with Pixar. Thankfully, Ratatouille is every bit as skillfully orchestrated as The Incredibles, seamlessly blending an offbeat, original storyline, relatable characters, verbal and physical humor, and cutting-edge computer animation.

Paris, France. Remy (voiced by Patton Oswalt), a rodent with a delicate palate and a sensitive nose, wants nothing more than to become a cook or chef at one of Paris' famous restaurants. Remy worships the late Gusteau (Brad Garrett), one of Paris' finest chefs. Trouble is Remy’s a rat and rats are loathed by humans. Remy's father and leader of the rodent colony, Django (Brian Dennehy), already has a role set up for Remy, tapping Remy's olfactory gifts to separate out edible trash from food poisoned by humans. Remy's slow-witted, weight-challenged brother, Emile (Peter Sohn), can't understand why Remy would want to leave the comforts of the colony to find a place in the dangerous, cruel world of humans. During an ill-considered misadventure one day to find just the right spice for his latest culinary effort, Remy becomes separated from Djanjo, Emile, and the rest of the colony during the escape attempt in Paris' elaborate sewer system.

Alone for the first time, Remy doesn't have a clue where to go next until Gusteau's ghost shows up (or, more accurately, a figment of Remy's imagination). When Remy emerges into the world above the Paris sewers, he discovers that he's where he's always wanted to be, in Gusteau's restaurant. With Gusteau's untimely death, the restaurant's management has passed to the diminutive Skinner (Ian Holm), Gusteau's former sous chef. Skinner has taken advantage of Gusteau's name to branch out into selling highly profitable frozen dinners. As Remy looks on from a rooftop window, he spots the restaurant's newest employee and garbage boy, Linguini (Lou Romano), almost ruining a soup. Remy rushes to the rescue, but moments after saving the soup, gets spotted by Skinner and captured by Linguini. Skinner orders Linguini to dispose of Remy.

Despite Skinner's strict orders, Linguini can't find it in himself to get rid of Remy, especially not after discovering Remy's culinary skills. Sitting at the edge of the Seine River, Linguini and Remy strike up a bargain. Remy will help Linguini become a top chef and Linguini will give Remy a home and, more importantly, let him cook to his heart's content. After trial and error, Remy discovers he can control Linguini like a marionette. For his part, Linguini develops a crush on Colette (Janeane Garofalo), another cook in Gusteau's kitchen. But Skinner suspects something's amiss, the gaunt, ghoulish Anton Ego (Peter O'Toole), a revered, feared food critic wants to try out Linguini's cooking, and a health inspector, Health Inspector (Tony Fucile), is set to visit on the same night.

For Ratatouille, Brad Bird had to overcome a natural revulsion most moviegoers have to rodents, especially when rodents are connected to food and cooking. Bird could have gone with say mice (smaller, more cuddly), but he decided to stay with rodents, anthropomorphizing them to a degree (e.g., large, pink noses, big eyes, walking upright), and giving his central character, Remy, very human preoccupations, aspirations, and motivations for his behavior. Remy wants the seemingly impossible and must face opposition from his family and humans. He also has to overcome his own doubts about his abilities. For the most part, Bird succeeds in convincing audiences to let go of their natural prejudices and side with Remy, with one exception that occurs late in the film involving an army of rats invading a kitchen to help no less. It's one, minor misstep in a film that otherwise doesn't have any.

Winning characters and story aside, Ratatouille wouldn't be a Pixar production without cutting edge computer animation. As expected, it's there in every single frame. Texture, lighting, volume, character designs, backgrounds are all as breathtaking and awe-inspiring as anything that's come out of Pixar. Rather than push technology in the direction of photorealism, Bird and his team of animators went with a more impressionistic tone for Ratatouille, depicting Paris with softer hues that are still strikingly detailed, but saving the photorealism for the food (bound to make moviegoers salivate). The character designs are equally striking, no less because they're aren't photorealistic or similar looking (as is too often the case in computer animation). Bird's character designs emphasize certain physical qualities as reflections of personality (i.e., caricature as character).

With a strong story centered on a relatable central character that's more complexly motivated than most characters in live-action films and a central conflict that spins predictably out of control (in unexpected ways), and top-notch computer animation that, once again, reflects Pixar's attention to craft and artistry, there's nothing holding Ratatouille back from joining Pixar's pantheon of animated greats, which starts with Toy Story (and Toy Story 2 of course), skips ahead to Monsters and Finding Nemo and, up to now, ended with The Incredibles. Next up for Bird and Pixar: Bird's first live-action film, an adaptation of James Dalessandro's 1906 set before, during, and after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.

© Mel Valentin, 29^th June, 2007