Ratatouille: Movie Review (2007)

What the magnificent new movie "Ratatouille" captures isn't just the culinary heart of Paris--itself a feat--but also the hearts of audiences. It does so through one determined, lovable little rat named Remy (voice of Patton Oswalt), who may have been raised to eat trash, poor thing, but who nevertheless dreams big of becoming a master chef and full-on gourmand.

Still, how to do so when a rat in the kitchen isn't exactly as welcome as, say, the beets in a borscht? For Remy, it helps if you have the support of a five-star chef like Auguste Gusteau (Brad Garrett), regardless of whether he's dead, which he is, as well as a likable, no-talent lug like Linguini (Lou Romano) to stand in as your puppet, which he does--at least for a while.

From writer-director Brad Bird ("The Incredibles," "The Iron Giant"), this latest collaboration between Disney and Pixar is among their best yet. It comes on the wheels of the studios’ weakest film, "Cars," which was so focused on achieving the best in cutting-edge animation, it failed to remember what mattered--the story and the characters.

Not so for "Ratatouille," which is as much a love letter to the City of Lights as it is a valentine to those who enjoy the pleasures of the table. As such, Paris is painstakingly rendered here, with the leaps forward in animation allowing Bird to showcase the city at its best--the architecture, the street life, the pace, and especially the food, which is beautifully detailed, right down to the work that goes into its preparation.

What’s essential to “Ratatouille” is that it understands that for some, good food isn't just an artistic expression and creation--it's passion itself. After all, if a mere noodle can bring together Disney’s Lady and Tramp, imagine what a perfectly prepared Provencal soup, with its halo of herbs, can do for a foodie who appreciates a subtle sleight of hand.

Remy is just that character. With his ghostly muse, Gusteau, guiding him to Gusteau’s once famous and now failing restaurant, the film’s complicated premise, in its most streamlined form, goes like this: Remy meets the much-maligned garbage boy Linguini, convinces him to let him sit under his toque, and then starts pulling Linguini’s hair in ways that control his arms and legs--and thus allows Remy to cook.

What’s in this for Linguini? Job security, for one, as well as a flirtation with the saucy Colette (Janeane Garofalo), fame when Remy’s cooking creates a sensation, and the ability to stick it to the evil Skinner (Ian Holm), who runs the restaurant as if he were steeped in bitters and who for too long has treated Linguini as if he were the stale limburger in the room.

How long can Remy and Linguini keep up their deceit? And what are they to do when Peter O’Toole’s Anton Ego, a grim food critic, threatens to write a tell-all review? In this early contender for the Academy Award, the answers are in the movie, which is so enjoyable, readers deserve to discover the rest for themselves.

Grade: A