“Ratatouille”

Pixar Studios/Walt Disney Films

Directed by Brad Bird

Starring Patton Oswalt, Ian Holm, Lou Romano, Brian Dennehy, Peter O’Toole, Brad Garrett and Janeane Garofalo.

Rated G

3 1/2 Stars

It’s getting a bit anticlimactic to announce that Pixar Films has another animated winner in theaters. The studios’ latest success is called “Ratatouille,” and even though it features a blue Parisian rat in the central role, audiences are nevertheless going to love this film. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised, after all, this is the studio who made us fall in love with characters as diverse as wooden puppets, a timid clownfish and even a revved-up sports car. Empathizing with a talking rat is easy.

Patton Oswalt lends his voice to Remy, the hero-rat who refuses to nibble on scraps of garbage like his fellow rodents. He finds himself looking through the window of a famous restaurant where a young man (Lou Romano) has just been hired on as a busboy. Using his superb sense of smell, Remy sneaks in to the kitchen and prepares a pot of soup that is so delicious that the busboy is immediately acclaimed as Europe’s next super chef. Nobody realizes that Remy the rat deserves the praise.

Remy befriends the busboy, and finds that he can control his actions by hiding in his hat and pulling on the boy’s hair like a marionette. It’s a system that works for a while, but the head chef (Ian Holm) smells a rat, literally, and vows to stop the upstart kid at any cost. A noted food critic also sharpens his poisoned pen, determined to squash the newcomer chef. Mix in a chaste love story, some minor misunderstandings between Remy and his family, a lot of slapstick humor and the result is an overstuffed family film that runs just shy of two hours. Don’t fret. The film is so good that even the youngest of kiddies won’t notice “Ratatouille’s” extended running time.

“Ratatouille” turns out to be fine cinematic cuisine. Not quite as tasty as “Toy Story,” “Finding Nemo” or “The Incredibles,” but a little better than last summer’s “Cars.” It’s big and bright, very funny, features amazing animation and the twin themes of “Dream Big” and “Don’t Discriminate, Even Against Rats.”

Delicious.

Movie reviews by Sean, “The Movie Guy,” are published bi-weekly in “The Port Arthur News.” Sean welcomes your comments via e-mail at smcbride@kavutv.com.