Anton Ego voices the best critique of a critic on record in this most adult-friendly Pixar Trek.(10/10)

Rating: 10/10 (17 April 2009)

Ratatouille was forced to give a "Quality Assurance guarantee" that this is "100% genuine animation-–No motion capture or any other performance shortcuts were used" when its rat-scurrying, soup-sloshing, and nose-twitching detail was found to be so terrific that some preview audiences thought it was done with motion capture.
2008 saw Ratatouille(2007) rightfully win the Best Animated Feature Oscar (with noms for another 4) not only for its realistic motion/cartoonish character 3D animation, but because its modern fairytale storytelling prowess is of the caliber of Hans Christian Andersen. It's an instant classic.
Unlike other Pixar instant classics, this one isn't really for littlies. Almost completely devoid of hyperbole or of overused conventions, Ratatouille's realism is a welcome gift for its patient adults. The double-hitter plot is about a talented rat discovering that his multiple roles make him robust, not a victim, and how mankind could accommodate other forms of life on a different scale/lifespan of existence--if we chose to.
Ratatouille(2007) betters its direct competition--DreamWorks' heavily marketed Bee Movie(2007)--by combining a straight story about the human/animal contract with deeper pathos and allegory for human relationships. In Ratatouille we find human analogues to our most vexing relationships with our egos and authority figures.
The "better father" theme was previously explored in Finding Nemo(2003) and the (storytelling-wise) slightly clumsier Happy Feet(2006)--sorry George Miller--but those were aimed mostly at children. Ratatouille(2007) is squarely aimed at their parents, who may have been guilty of voicing opinions like the father rat's: "We look after our own kind (because) the world belongs to our enemy", as they willingly created the insular communities that their unfortunate children would have to grow up in. This is the main reason for depicting the upward-looking, ready-to-move-out-of-home Remy as blue and cuter than his brutish, much uglier brown rat father. But let's not deconstruct too far.
The question at the core of their cross-generational argument(s) has now been answered. In countries where women and minorities got the vote and access to good jobs, it's getting very difficult to sound mentally competent insisting that "you can't change nature". When endemic political advantage is cemented as "nature" by both the culture and religion of the society in question, it is the job of the young to question that, because they have to inherit it. Ratatouille is brilliant at reminding such insular fathers that when they uphold this "nature", they do it against their own children, keeping the parents' failure to get a better deal unchallenged.
There is another powerful thread in Ratatouille, that of our social reconsideration for animal companions we'd normally revile for their surprising competitive success. In this, Ratatouille resembles Babe(1995), its most worthy filmic companion.
The story ennobles all those who join the level of debate (compete) in their chosen profession by signifying that even if our world isn't set up to treat the truths of the politically unequal as real, eventually they will be heard. Eventually everyone has to accept change, because, as Ratatouille's wisdom is voiced by little Remy, "change IS nature, dad, the part we can influence--and it starts as soon as we decide". Humanity went to the moon only because we set ourselves the goal; 3D features happened only because Pixar "reinvented the universe" (requisite technologies).
The delicately withheld character of Anton Ego is a welcome instant archetype, perfectly named for being the quintessential self-satisfied pompous loner who needs his ego pricked. And so, in the most balanced comeuppance that any film can/has shown, Peter O'Toole's perfectly inflected critic is eventually reformed: "In many ways, the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little, yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgement. We thrive on negative criticism which is fun...." (generally a male-specific cruelty Germans call schadenfreude; not all of us are like this) "....to both write and to read. But the bitter truth we critics must face is that in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is more meaningful than our criticism designating it so." (The Brady Bunch wasn't TV's finest hour, yet millions grew up pining for their parents to be that cheesy.)
It cannot go unobserved that "Skinner" is a very UN-FRENCH name for Ratatouille's rampant but diminutive Frenchie. This is due to the film's dimorphous central caricature: while Ego is a goth-like emaciated tall guy more resembling the actual--very American--BF.Skinner (cf "operant conditioning chamber"--Wikipaedia), the caricature's other half is a sight-gag on the so-called Skinner Box itself.
Burrhus.F Skinner was probably behaviourism's most-reviled psychologist. His heyday accounts for the slightly 1950s look of Ratatouille's Paris. Prof Skinner's arguably overzealous positivism for empirical evidence was borne of his own "Skinner Box" RAT EXPERIMENTS which made for his purely robot-like explanations of people. The film therefore pokes subtle fun at the scientist by having an ultra-short namesake stand ON the proverbial Skinner Box--downgraded to a step-ladder--to see. Interestingly, Skinner is further caricatured as a sellout chef.
Ratatouille's cartoony humans are balanced out by their realistic motion, and by the breathtakingly detailed backdrops of Paris at its most beautiful.
However the true beauty of Ratatouille is its ability to weave together so many threads into ostensibly just one story. This is the meat of storytelling, and in this instance, the high art of original writing. Both Remy's prologue with the violent little-old-lady (establishing his rat respect as a poison-checker), and Anton Ego's comeuppance in the epilogue add to the overall message of due respect for little Remy as The Best Chef in France.
Ratatouille(2007) therefore deserves the highest popular and industry respect aside the original Babe(1995). The rug-puller truth for its critic was the same as for all of us: we're all human, even if some of us are less human than others.(10/10)