Ratatouille

Brad Bird returns to steer Pixar back in the right direction after the quality meter dipped a little with last year’s Cars, producing another contender for the company’s all-time list. Ratatouille is a tale about a Parisian rat named Remy who’s determined to take advantage of his culinary skills and only eat quality food, rather than the garbage his family literally consumes. While browsing the dangerous kitchen floor of his deceased idol Gusteau’s restaurant, Remy manages to get involved with a bumbling young man named Linguini, who has just been hired to mop the floors of the now failing business. Linguini is mistaken for an up-and-coming chef when credit is given to him for a soup that Remy prepared and the two find themselves working together to create delicious entrees in secrecy. The movie touches upon the current relationship between humans and rats in our society, as well as an in-depth look into the culinary arts, all with the most jaw-dropping animation you’ve ever seen — the movie utilises numerous angles from a mouse’s point of view, which makes for some fantastic shots. Watching the short featurette that draws a parallel between a chef’s kitchen and Pixar’s studios, one sees director Brad Bird always pushing for more from his animators. You witness the grimace on an animator’s face when Bird asks for that extra mile, but you can see how essential these added requests are to take his movies to a higher level of storytelling. There are three deleted scenes presented in rough sketch form, which includes what would have been an incredible single edit scene that introduces the restaurant but was cut in order to preserve the audience’s first glimpse of the setting, which is the same as Remy’s. There are two short films this time around, including the Lifted spot that ran in theatres, as well as a clever two-dimensional history of the rat, which reminds you they can eat, and squeeze through, just about anything, but also points out that our rodent friends are worshipped in some religions and that it’s not their fault they started the Black Death plague. This single disc DVD edition is basically just a warm up for what will surely be released again from the "Disney vaults” in the future, but the quality of this package is well worth jumping on now.