Decent Pixar

Rating: 7/10 (10 December 2014)

A rat who can cook makes an unusual alliance with a young kitchen worker at a famous restaurant.
This film is given high praise, and many seem to think it is among Pixar's best work. That seems a tad overblown. While the film is certainly good, it does not seem to go above and beyond anything else the studio has done. The animation (again, good) is no better than anything else they have released.
Even the message is the same old story: someone (or thing) from one group wants to be in another. His current group says no, the new one is hesitant, but he has to be himself. Now, that is a good message, and this may be an extreme example (rats in a kitchen a la "Muppets Take Manhattan") but it is still nothing new.