Ratatouille

According to master Parisian chef Gusteau (Brad Garrett), “Anyone can cook!” However, not anyone can make a good movie, especially a good movie that happens to be 100% animated. Fortunately, we have Brad Bird (The Incredibles) mixing ingredients that have made for a most appetizing family film.

I know, I know–if you’re a childless adult like me, you probably started to zone out when I said “family film.” But Ratatouille really is a movie for all ages that neither talks down to the kids, nor panders to the adults with snarky double-entendres. It’s simply the story of following your dreams, making them real, and what can happen along the way. And if you just happen to be a blue rat, you can relate all the more!

Remy (Patton Oswalt) is a rodent with a super-sensitive sense of smell ranging from the redolent to the ravishing. Once discovered, the rat pack uses Remy’s precious proboscis to sniff out rot and poison, thereby saving many of their lives and allowing them to become bolder…and stepping closer to the danger-fraught human-habitat, The City of Lights. Remy, a furry would-be gourmet, wants nothing more than to infiltrate the great kitchens of Paris’s finest dining establishments to see how the experts ply their considerable talents in creating culinary combinations.

The story is split more or less evenly between Remy’s story and that of the humans whose lives his little paws touch. His counterpart in the kitchen is young, nerve-wracked cooking-newbie Linguini (Lou Romano), who just happens to (unwittingly) be the long-lost son of Chef Gusteau. Gusteau is recently deceased, but his leaving of the mortal plane doesn’t stop him from becoming Remy’s mentor, and—through Remy—a father to his son.

Ratatouille features the voices of some pretty heavy-hitting actors and those with highly recognizable voices (Peter O’Toole, Ian Holm, Janeane Garofalo, Brian Dennehy), but showmanship doesn’t drown the main course. Nor are there silly songs, stupid jokes, or pop-culture references. It was obviously made to be a timeless story, and on that level it succeeds.

Ratatouille also succeeds on a visual level, using CG animation to tastefully and artfully display everything from fur to fabric to facades. Paris is stunningly recreated via computer, and the rats, while certainly not realistic-looking in the least, do display naturalistic scurries and tail-taps.

In short, this rat calls for a toast.