When we first meet Remy (Patton Oswalt), he’s in the process of convincing his rat brethren that it’s a waste to eat garbage; as proof he adds a fresh mushroom to a pilfered bit of cheese, garnishes it with a sprig of rosemary, and toasts it with a lightning bolt. After being separated from his (literal) junk-food loving family, Remy finds himself zipping along through the sewers beneath a famous Paris restaurant. Following his nose, he pops up in the kitchen just in time to toss a few spices into a soup, turning it into a culinary masterpiece, and earning raves from a food critic.
By a series of bizarre circumstances, Remy ends up directing human avatar Linguine, a former garbage boy, and transforming the restaurant into the hottest dinner spot in France. Like all of Pixar’s work, the devil is in the details. From the tap-tap of raindrops on dead leaves accompanying the opening shot to the toothpaste cap serving as a goblet in a rats-only wine bar, every shot in is rich with layered details of color, sound, and production design.
The digital Paris on display here feels less like an invented world than a discovered one—the kitchen at Remy’s restaurant looks and sounds like a real high-end kitchen, complete with bronze cookware and a multi-ethnic staff. There should be an “ick” factor at work here, but to the film’s credit, the various rodents manage to feel harmless while still looking, moving and sounding like rats. When we first meet Remy (Patton Oswalt), he’s in the process of convincing his rat brethren that it’s a waste to eat garbage; as proof he adds a fresh mushroom to a pilfered bit of cheese, garnishes it with a sprig of rosemary, and toasts it with a lightning bolt.
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