Another classic by Brad Bird

Rating: 10/10 (1 March 2009)

Brad Bird, a member of the Simpsons team in its early days and the writer and director of the Iron Giant and the Incredibles. Pixar studios have made some of the best animated films ever, film Toy Story to the Wall-E, only missing the mark once. Pixar is the only Hollywood studio that can get away with such uncinematic material.
The plot focuses on Remy (Patton Oswalt), a rat from rural France who has a highly developed sense of taste and smell. He is obsessed with cooking and after getting separated from his colony ends up in the centre of Paris. He goes to the result of his ideal Auguste Gusteau who had recently died. He watches the kitchen staff work and sees the new garbage boy Linguini (Lou Romano) nearly ruining the soap of the day. Remy goes in to the kitchen an starts to make a tasty, but gets caught by Linguini. However, Linguini comes up with the idea that the two can work in a team and the young man becomes a cooking celebrity in France. However, the team have to take on the villainous the head-chef Skinner (Ian Holm) who used Auguste Gusteau's image to sell cheap frozen dinners. During the film Remy and Linguini suffer the highs and lows of celebrity and cookery and friendship, strain loyalties and romance, as well as tacking the evil Skinner and having to please the Anton Ego (Peter O'Toole), the toughest food critic in Paris.
The animation is beautiful, which is what you expect from a Pixar film, but there is more then that. In Ratatouille there are characters you care about, good voice acting, a strong plot, great designs and a lot of research was conducted. This was a film made from love. The humour is mostly slapstick, but it's a kid film, so you expect it and it's good slapstick. There were also good visual and verbal jokes. The best humour involves the mass of rats. I also thought that the hard-as-nails female chef Collette (Janeane Garofalo) was an excellent comic creation. There is also some dark humour and jokes for adults. However there is one scene which may upset very young or sensitive children, but most will like it.
I admit I prefer the Incredibles, but Ratatouille is an excellent follow up by Brad Bird and I would like him to either do a sequel for the Incredibles or work as the Simpsons show runner just to sort out the once great show.
Fantastic film.