Pixar has to be running out of things to turn into cute adorable merchandising items by now. Toys. Bugs. Monsters. Fish. Superheroes. Even cars! And now...rats? The rat is not a naturally cute animal, given the whole you know, Black Death thing and the sewer living. But as 'Flushed Away' taught us, it's possible to make

an adorable rat, as long as they're somewhat human. Pixar does away with the total anthropomorphization of the species and keeps it to its roots: disgusting little creatures that, of course, by the end, we love and find absolutely adorable. Look, I live in New York, and there is nothing adorable about a nest of rats swarming in around you. Even in their natural-looking state, Bird gives us more humanity in only their eyes than most of the spectacle we have been treated to this summer. I might say this for damn near every major animated picture, but this is definitely the best looking. The characters are smooth, the atmosphere wonderful and Paris...dazzling. Exactly as I remember her (but with better food).

Aah, and the food! If this film does not make you want to rush home and cook up a gourmet meal, then I think it has failed on some level. Never have completely CG delicacies been so appetizing. Hell, I charged home and whipped up some pasta. Those of you who know me know I am not the biggest fan of pasta, but that is precisely what the film made me do!

    Remy (Patton Oswalt) is a simple rat with a big dream: he wants to be a chef. There’s only one really small problem with that plan: he’s a rat. Last time I checked, they weren’t really allowed inside the kitchen, or anywhere for that matter. That’s where Linguini (Lou Romano) comes into the picture, see he works at a restaurant, but he can’t cook to save his life and after an amusing but unfortunate case of mistaken culinary identity, suddenly he realllllly needs to learn how. Thus, in true cinema fashion (like, say, Dragonheart between Draco and Bowen) the two team up and go on to take Paris by storm!

    For a Pixar film, the voice cast is decidedly off-kilter. Patton Oswalt, known more for his standup and some minor supporting roles, shines in the role of Remy precisely because he is not known outside of me and my idiot friends. He’s quiet and subdued, not the loud and screaming Patton we’re used to. Though I did secretly wish he would say “At Gusteau’s Restaurant, you’re name is Peaches!” Remy is perhaps the most likable and easy to route for non-human creature Pixar has created. In all prior films, the humans were there, but they were mostly as a foreboding ‘other’ that our heroes spent most of their time avoiding them. It’s easy to make humans the kinda-sorta bad guy when your protagonist is a rat, after all. But Remy has to interact with them, and not only that, but communicate with Linguini by pulling his hair. More than any limp-finned fish, Remy really is a fish out of water and we love him for it, because hey, Paris, despite all its beauty, is a fucking scary ass place.

    The voice to remember, however, is Peter O’Toole. In my ‘Cars’ review last year, I said Paul Newman had a voice for animated movies. But he has nothing, I mean nothing, on the man, the myth, the legend, Lawrence of fucking Arabia himself: Peter O’Toole. He plays snooty Parisian food-critic Anton Ego with such intensity and dryness that he literally walks off the screen. He looks like something out of one of Tim Burton’s claymation films and is afforded one of the funniest moments in the movie, a quick flashback which describes in no words the affect a single meal can have on the senses. Later, towards the end of the film, he explains the critic’s role in the world of art and his words ring true for more than just the culinary world. With a few choice word replacements, they could easily represent what we (try to) do here at the site.

    Even Matt saw it! I know! But he’s chained to an edit bay 24 hours a day?! Someone got sloppy. And you know what? He loved it. He even said it was his favorite Pixar movie. I will disagree with him, as I still hold ‘The Incredibles’, also written and directed by Brad Bird, to be the penultimate in animation. But the guy who’s face you tune in to see can’t be all that wrong, right? ‘Ratatouille’ is one of the first truly family films to come out all year. The jokes are sharp and understandable by those of any age group and, though it hits all the proper moments, it injects the medium with some much needed pizzaz and genuine emotion. The characters go through a lot and we are more than happy to go along right with them. Skip dinner and just go to ‘Ratatouille’, it’s a sumptuous feast for the senses and the heartstrings.

    I award the film 1 shot, but in honor of the cuisine, make it a glass of wine. Something old and red. The film demands it.