Ratatoullie

We did a family movie night last night, despite the interruption of a heavy thunderstorm in between, and watched one of the recorded films on our DVR: the 2007 Pixar film Ratatoullie. Gotta say that it got three thumbs up.

Now, we've been Pixar fans in our household since the first Toy Story film. We usually went as a family to see most of them in the theatres. That is until a few years ago when so much was coming out each summer that we had to pick and chose what we saw in theatre and what we saw at home. This one we planned to see on the big screen but never got around to it. Still, it worked well on the home-big screen TV just fine - especially with the HD.

The story, in case you don't know, is about a rat with a gift: a nose with a discriminating smell. Aspiring to be more than just the colony's poison-sniffer, he longs to explore the culinary world of food combinations. When a disaster seperates him from his kind, he winds up in Paris and on the doorstep of a once great restaurant. As fate would have it, his skills can benefit a young man who longs to be something but doesn't have the first clue on how to be a chef.

What I love about Pixar films is that the technology has come so far that you quickly forget you are watching a computer animated cartoon. You get lost in the world the programmers create - a rich world of details and style and substance. Any one who is a fan of the studios work can also see they are coming a lot further in how they animate their "human" characters too. For me, the people in this film are a step above animation-wise than those done in the Incredibles and Finding Nemo, two Pixar films I loved.

Well worth the time spent viewing, and one I'd happily watch again and again should I run across it. A great family film for kids of all ages - even 43 year old ones like myself.