Foodies Can Rejoice...Also Rodents...at a Charmer with Pixar's Trademark Craftsmanship

Rating: 8/10 (22 May 2008)

The craftsmanship in a Pixar film is so startling that it's easy to take the genuine artistry behind it for granted given the studio's consistent run of hits since "Toy Story" over a dozen years ago. Like "The Incredibles" and "Cars", this 2007 confection runs nearly two hours, comparatively long for an animated film, with a story that demands more attention than most. Unlike the animated films under Disney's banner, this one doesn't offer any musical numbers as story breaks. Director/co-screenwriter Brad Bird, who was also behind the "The Incredibles", returns with a charmer that is as much a sumptuous treat for the Food Network generation as it is a parable about self-fulfillment and tolerance. Except for a few set pieces, especially toward the end, the movie is not quite as exhilarating as previous efforts, but there is no getting around its sheer entertainment value.
The dense plot focuses primarily on Remy, an intellectually curious rat with a heightened sense of smell. He lives in a rodent colony in the French countryside headed by his wizened father Django, who uses Remy to smell everyone's food for possible poison. However, Remy has bigger dreams of becoming a chef like Gusteau, the recently deceased guiding light behind Paris' finest restaurant. While escaping from an old crone whose kitchen he has been using, Remy fittingly ends up at Gusteau's where he meets a bumbling garbage boy named Linguini. By hiding under Linguini's chef hat and pulling on his scalp like a puppeteer, Remy is now able to fulfill his dream of becoming a world-class chef. Thanks to Remy's culinary wizardry, Linguini becomes the talk of the town. Naturally, Linguini has to take credit for Remy's dishes and attracts the attention of fellow sous-chef Colette who has dreams of becoming a chef herself. No fanciful story like this would be complete without a villain, and this time, it is Skinner, the small, self-centered sous-chef who took over the restaurant after Gusteau's death only to cheapen the master chef's name by developing a line of microwavable food products to mass market.
The rest of the story plays itself out in inevitable fashion but with plenty of clever twists and turns thanks to the perceptive screenplay by Bird, Jan Pinkava and Jim Capobianco, which focuses on the human qualities in the rodents. Needless to say, the CGI work is impressive, especially when the rats literally take over the kitchen. However, the visual realism of seeing the rats swarm in multiple battalions is a bit daunting to watch no matter how human Bird tries to make them. Despite the appearance of marquee names, the vocal casting is for the most part, merely serviceable. Comedian Patton Oswalt brings the right level of enthusiastic optimism to Remy's voice, while Brad Garrett (Gusteau's spirit), Ian Holm (Skinner), Janeane Garofalo (Colette) and Will Arnett (fellow sous-chef Horst) lose much of their individual personalities to their thick French accents. Lou Romano lends a fumbling callowness to Linguini, while Brian Dennehy is certainly recognizable as Django. The true standout, however, is Peter O'Toole who voices intimidating food critic Anton Ego with his usual theatrical flair.
I'm surprised the extras on the 2007 DVD are relatively sparse for a major Pixar release. There is no commentary track from Bird, but instead, a 14-minute featurette with him and master chef Thomas Keller, who opened his kitchen at the legendary French Laundry restaurant to the animation team. This isn't Keller's first foray into cinema since he helped prepare Adam Sandler for his role as a celebrity chef in the execrable "Spanglish". The two best extras are the animation shorts. The first is the five-minute "Lifted" that preceded the movie in many theaters. It's an amusing take on the abduction scene in "Close Encounters of the Third Kind". The second is the clever, ten-minute "Your Friend the Rat" which features Remy and his chubby brother Emile carrying on about the joys of being a rat and why we should love them, too. There are also three deleted scenes with introductions and plenty of previews from both Pixar and Disney.