NPR 07-08:In a Paris Kitchen, a Comedy that Genuinely Cooks“

Remy, the rodent 1 hero of Pixar's perfectly 2 seasoned Ratatouille, is a country rat with city tastes.

Pixar, the animation 3 studio that created Finding Nemo and The Incredibles, has had an unbroken string of hits since it released Toy Story in 1995. Pixar’s pictures have almost always been as popular with critics as with audiences, though some felt last summer’s Cars needed a tuneup.

This weekend brings Ratatouille, a movie about a rat who wants to be a top chef. Bob Mondello says the Pixar animators have gotten the recipe just right.

Remy is a country rat with city tastes where his rodent relatives happily eat garbage. Remy watches cooking shows and has learned to sniff 4 out spices. So when fate takes him to Paris, he hangs out at a restaurant, a cable TV chef made famous before he died. Alas 5, restaurants don’t like having rats around, so Remy perches 6 on the skylight, feeling sorry for himself and imagining what the chef would say to him if he was still around.

What do I always say? Anyone can cook.

Well, yeah, anyone can. That doesn’t mean that anyone should.

Well, that is not stopping him, see?

The clean-up boy has spilled some soup and he is guiltily and a little arbitrarily filling the pot back up.

He is ruining the soup, and nobody is noticing it. It’s your restaurant, do something.

What can I do? I am a figment of your imagination.

But he is ruining the soup, you gotta tell someone. Is that…

Falling from skylight to sink, Remy leaps into a series of what you might call kitchen ballets, sometimes sprinkling ingredients into pots, other times dodging 7 knives thrown his way. What Remy needs is a front man for the kitchen, so he teams up with that clueless garbage boy by sitting under his chef's hat and telling him what to do. Imagine a culinary Cyrano de Bergerat in which the boy who is acceptable in the kitchen keeps wanting to confess to a lady chef he is sweet on about a rodent who isn’t acceptable.

When I added that extra ingredient and started following the recipe like you said. That wasn’t me.

What do you mean?

I mean I would have done that. I would have followed the recipe; I would have followed your advice, I would have followed your advice to the ends of the ear because I love your advice.

(but) But I(don’t do it) I have a secret. It’s sort of disturbing. I have a rat.(what, what you…) I have a rat. (You have a rat.) No, no, no. I have this, this tiny, a little, little, a tiny chef who tells me what to do.

Director Brad Bird is the guy who made The Incredibles. And like his super characters in that one, Ratatouilles’ food-obsessed folks inhabit a recognizably real world as they snipe about prepackaged meals and inadequate 8 cheeses. They even acquaint an audience that may not know chives from chervil with restaurant terminology 9. Don’t be surprised if your kids come home knowing what a sous-chef dose or asking for rice with saffron. With food so lovingly digitized that you can tell stale bread from fresh. Ratatouille isn’t just amusing, it’s downright mouthwatering. Also very pretty - Paris hasn’t looked so gorgeous since Gene 10 Kelly danced there - and engagingly down-to-earth, all the way from its faintly harrowing rat swarms 11 ( Remy’s family drops by his workplace on occasion), to its hilariously 12 demanding food critic, Anton Ego 13 (voiced by Peter O'Toole).

The studio is reportedly nervous about whether Ratatouille is too sophisticated. But it’s silly to underestimate the public appetite when a picture is this much fun. Kids are gonna gobble Ratatouille up, adults will relish 14 its wit and everyone will wanna go out to eat afterwards. I am Bob Mondello.