Daft but deft

Rating: 9/10 (19 February 2009)

I wonder what goes on in Brad Bird's head? How on earth do you come up with the notion of a rat who wants to be a chef and achieves his goal by just happening to find a young kitchen worker who can be physically controlled by judicious hair-pulling? As always with Pixar's films, it isn't the plot details which matter, nor is it the sumptuous visuals (a gloriously realised Paris, mostly seen from a rat's-eye point of view), it's the emotional journeys taken by the characters: Remy the rat flying in the face of expectations, Linguini the callow kitchen boy, acquiring maturity and self-confidence, Colette the woman in a man's world, softening as she warms to Linguinini's gentleness, Ego the critic, learning that there are more important things than that which he thought was so important.
Every major character learns, develops, grows, and moves forwards, and they do so in a wonderfully visual way - and not only that, it's funny! No matter what my reservations about Brad Bird's brain, his mental weirdness makes good movies!