I am so impressed by everyone at Pixar. I don't know of any other studio, animated or otherwise, that has put out such a consistently great body of work. These folks have managed to take every subject they touch and turn it into pure gold. These people are so good, they can make good movies about talking automobiles, for criminy! They've made it quite clear they know what they're doing.
Anyway, "Ratatouille" is the latest entry into Pixar's ever-increasing portfolio of sure-to-be-classic films. The movie is about a rat, Remy (Patton Oswalt) who has unique epicurean talents and tastes not shared by his less-discerning, garbage-eating clan. After getting separated from his family during an evacuation, Remy ends up in Paris, where he finds his way into the kitchen of Gusteau's, a formerly posh restaurant, recently demoted from five stars to three after a bad review and the death of its celebrity head chef. Remy arrives at the same time as garbage boy Linguini, who is a walking kitchen disaster. Through a series of strange events, Remy and Linguini team up, and start making dishes that turn the heads of diners and critics across Paris. But when famously snobby food critic Anton Ego (Peter O'Toole) shows up to try out the new menu, the team of Remy and Linguini is pushed to the very edge of their abilities.
The first striking feature of "Ratatouille" is the detail. Every nuance of every character, down to the tiniest hair, has been painstakingly detailed. The characters aren't designed to look real, in fact everyone looks pretty cartoonish. But everything else about the setting looks amazingly realistic. The story is well thought and very cute, and can appeal to kids and adults alike, something Pixar has proven their capabilities in time and time again. They even managed to make rats look darling, and that is quite a feat. The movie's a bit long, at two hours, but the length doesn't really sink in until you check your watch afterwards and realize how long you've been sitting in the theater.
"Ratatouille" is the latest great film to come from a studio that seems unable to produce bad films. I don't know who's been slicing those pieces of fried gold over there, or how those crazily talented people came across so much of it, but I'm sure glad it's there. Pixar has already gone down in history as being the first animation studio to produce a full-length computer animated film, but before long they're going to be known as the biggest and best creative force in children's films, if not modern cinema.