AN animated cartoon feature in which a rat aspires to be a chef might seem an unlikely addition to that canon of movies ( Big Night, Tampopo, Babette's Feast, Eat Drink Man Woman) eulogising the preparation of food, glorious food. Unlikely as the premise of Ratatouillemay seem, director Brad Bird and the ace animators at Pixar have fashioned it into a delightful entertainment.
Remy (voiced by Patton Oswalt) is an unusually discerning rat. He disdains the garbage eagerly eaten by fellow rodents such as his dad (Brian Dennehy) and brother (Peter Sohn). He has a heightened sense of smell when it comes to food ingredients. He walks standing up so that his paws aren't dirty when he's eating.
Remy is separated from his family when they are evicted from their home in the French countryside and escape through the sewers. He ends up in Paris, near the restaurant that was run by his idol, portly Auguste Gusteau (Brad Garrett), who died recently and whose motto - "Anyone can cook" - served as an inspiration to Remy.
The restaurant is now under the management of a cynical philistine (Ian Holm) who crassly exploits its reputation with a line in frozen meals. The turning point comes when Remy slips in, reveals his culinary flair and enhances a tureen of soup, and shy assistant Linguini (Lou Romano) is given the credit.
There are resonant echoes of Cyrano de Bergeracwhen they secretly form a double act, with Remy hiding inside Linguini's toque and pulling his hair to cue him through consummate cuisine creations. Ratatouillebuilds towards Remy's greatest challenge, when he has to prepare a meal that will satisfy a snooty, sneering food critic named Anton Ego, played with chilly hauteur by Peter O'Toole on sublime form.
As the movie celebrates the joys of cooking (and eating), artists admire artistry as Bird and his Pixar team draw on their own remarkable talents to pay tribute to expertise in the kitchen. The action sequences are exhilaratingly staged, and the film plays like an animated treatment of a scene from the Bourne trilogy in an extended chase by motorbike, on foot and in boats along the Seine.
The imagery, as we have come to expect from Pixar, is state-of- the-art, meticulous in every detail and often simply gorgeous as Linguini looks out from his tiny apartment on to sensational views of Paris.
Given that most Hollywood productions featuring French characters seem to imagine the country is populated by people who speak like Inspector Clouseau, Ratatouilleis refreshingly light on caricature, and even then it is amusing when voice cast members ostentatiously drop aitches, as when one says, "I 'ate false modesty." MICHAEL DWYER
