A Rat who Cooks in Paris? If it's Pixar - Yes.

Rating: 6/10 (8 July 2007)

Brad Bird really put himself on the line with this strange concoction of a film. The only way this concept could work for the length of a feature (at 1 hour and 50 minutes - that's an eternity in animation time), is to go all out. Indeed, that's what this epic does and succeeds. From a floating imaginary chef to hair pulling as puppetry, the film is stuffed full of little details and subplots. No, you can't let a film with a strange Tom and Jerry feel to it become the central part of the film, so the character of Linguini and his own strife counter-balance the rat's story. Indeed, Linguini, a clutz in the Jerry Lewis vein, carries the second half of the story, with the rat mostly disappearing in many scenes. What Brad Bird accomplishes, meanwhile, is that Pixar magic, where you get an unexpected emotional attachment to strange world they have created.
So, in the end, this is not a story about a rat who likes to cook, it becomes the moral that anyone can try something new. AND - there are no dumb Randy Newman songs. The pacing is quick, there are a few good action scenes, and humour exists, but mostly forced. This is still more of an adult orient animated film (there is a love story), but the rat is cute and the unorthodox premise never bores. As uncertain to the reaction when the film opened, there is a solid timeless quality to the execution that will make it a classic. Something that could not be said about last year's "Cars".