Ratatouille

Stars: Voices: Patton Oswalt, Ian Holm, Brian Dennehy, Peter O'Toole, Janeane Garofalo, Lou Romano

Director: Brad Bird

Rats are in. No sooner have we seen the cartoon world's first rat hero in
Flushed Away, than here's another. Remy is a French rat whose sense of smell leads him into blending cheese and mushrooms to tempt his fellow rodents away from ordinary garbage.

Washed away from his home patch by a river in spate (in a terrific
sequence that brings picturesque life to the phrase 'like a drowned rat'),
Remy ends up in Paris beneath the restaurant of his idol, the late Auguste
Gusteau, who has died following the loss of a star in his restaurant
rating after a bad review by scabrous food critic Anton Ego (O'Toole with the film's only really distinguished voice performance).

Now the spirit of Gusteau guides Remy, who is soon a permanent rodent -
oops, resident - under the chef's hat of garbage boy Linguini, who
suddenly finds himself hailed as a culinary genius, and turns out to be
the rightful heir to Gusteau's establishment.

The first half if this animated feast is quite delightful, but it does sag
a bit after this (like all two-hour Pixar cartoons, it's too long) before
landing on its paws in a glorious finale. One longs to see Remy as his
own master running the restaurant instead of the power behind the throne,
but he has, after all, an inbuilt disadvantage. As one character reminds
him: 'For Pete's sake, you're a rat!'

Showing with a very funny five-minute short, Lifted.

David Quinlan

USA 2007. UK Distributor: Walt Disney. Technicolor.
112 minutes. not widescreen. UK certificate: U.

Guidance ratings (out of 3): Sex/nudity 0, Violence/Horror 0, Drugs 0, Swearing 0.

Review date: 07 Oct 2007