The rat's name is Remy (voiced by Patton Oswalt), and aside from being the cutest rodent in the history of cinema, he is also an aspiring chef. This ambition proves problematic, since rats -- no matter how adorable -- tend not to be welcome in the restaurant business, McDonald's notwithstanding. Disenchanted by his family's culinary philistinism ("Shut up and eat your garbage!" his father bellows), Remy tries to sneak into a human kitchen one night to peruse the cookbooks, leading to a high-speed pursuit, a wild ride through the French sewer system and an eventual arrival in Paris. There, he finds his way to the restaurant of his idol, the renowned human chef Gusteau (Brad Garrett). Gusteau is recently deceased, but that doesn't stop his ghost from popping up now and again as a sort of spectral wingman to offer Remy encouragement and advice. When two of the main characters in a movie are a rat and a dead guy, you know it must be something special.
The third major player in "Ratatouille" is Linguini (Lou Romano), the restaurant's clumsy garbage boy who wants to be a chef but can barely boil water without screwing it up. Linguini seems to be based on every awkward teenager who ever lived -- he is gawky, inarticulate, painfully inept with women and desperate to prove otherwise. He also might be the son of the restaurant's late owner, a possibility that vexes its current one, the pipsqueak egotist Skinner (Ian Holm). Skinner fears that Linguini will claim legal ownership of the restaurant, which would ruin his plans of converting it into a chain of fast food joints. We know that Skinner is the bad guy because he is mean, tasteless and speaks English with a deplorable French accent -- but then, since French-accented English seems to be the national language of CGI France, this last point doesn't really count.
After being introduced to each other through a series of inspired mishaps, Remy and Linguini decide to pool their skills -- cooking and not looking like a rat, respectively -- to realize their mutual dream of becoming a chef. A system of collaboration is quickly developed: Linguini hides Remy under his toque, while Remy instructs his avatar by pulling on tufts of hair like the joysticks of a video game. This leads to some brilliant slapstick, when Linguini, his movements controlled by the rat on his head, bumbles around the kitchen like a marionette gone mad. Think Buster Keaton meets Punch and Judy.
The ingenious premise of "Ratatouille" -- epicurean rodent meets fumbling chef -- sprang from the fertile mind of director Brad Bird, the animation auteur behind "The Iron Giant" and "The Incredibles." Bird's open-handed showmanship is entertaining in the best sense of the word; he orchestrates scenes of inspired physicality with effortless verve and displays an eye for visual realization that other animators only dream of. In particular, the film's visualization of the City of Lights is like nothing ever seen in the movies. When Remy looks out the window, we see a luminescent ocean of twinkling houses, out of which a perpetually glittering Eiffel Tower emerges like a celestial spear.
Bird is also a gifted director of voice actors, and here with his cast he crafts some of the most memorable characters in recent animated cinema. Oswalt and Romano never miss a beat as the two leads, and Janeane Garofalo has some great moments as Colette, the militant feminist sous-chef who browbeats Linguini ("Keep your station clean, or I will kill you!") only to fall in love with his innocence. But the film is stolen by the vocal stylings of Peter O'Toole, who positively oozes sarcasm as the mordant restaurant critic Anton Ego. Black-clad and sallow-skinned, Ego appears to have wandered in from a Tim Burton movie sans charm. It seems oddly appropriate, therefore, that he gets the biggest laugh in the film, in a childhood flashback that's both hilarious and bizarrely compelling.
In an age when family entertainment is largely dominated by soulless, overproduced dreck (see -- or rather, don't see -- the recent "Shrek the Third" for Exhibit A), the most marvelous aspect of "Ratatouille" is its stubborn refusal to descend into fashionable pop cynicism. Here is a movie that is decidedly and refreshingly un-hip; there is not a single Paris Hilton joke and not a whiff of MTV-age sensibility in sight, which is not to say that it is impossible for members of any age group to enjoy "Ratatouille" -- the film's endearing duo of lovable misfits are guaranteed to warm the hearts of even the most iron-skinned audiences.
The film makes occasional stabs at light social commentary (rodents and humans overcoming their differences and learning to work together, etc.) but "Ratatouille's" broad moral lessons seem an unnecessary justification for its far more worthwhile qualities as a work of delirious entertainment. It is a movie so sweet, so delightful and genuine and heartfelt, that you simply want to throw your arms around it in praise. And did I mention how cute that rat is?
