Ratatouille

and always with a physical elegance worthy of Buster Keaton. This is what animation should be. But since we've got 'em here, let's also praise a fabulous voice cast so supple that it makes rats, the French and maybe even critics easy to like.

Our blue-furred hero Remy (voiced by Patton Oswalt of "The King of Queens" Patton Oswalt) is a country rat blessed and cursed with an exquisite sense of smell. While his relatives are content with their farmhouse's abundant array of garbage, Remy, who's been watching cooking programs hosted by the late five-star chef Gusteau (Brad Garrett), has higher standards and dreams, impossibly, of becoming a gourmet cook himself. An incident involving a little old lady and a shotgun the first of many marvelously designed, motion-rich set-pieces sends his whole colony into the sewers that lead to Paris.

Even the water work here looks better and more dangerous than in "Surf's Up," where it plays wasa much bigger part of the deal. Anyway, Rmy gets separated from hid group and, with the ghost of Gusteau egging him on, Remy winds up in the kitchen of the great chef's once-great restaurant. It's been taken over by Skinner (Ian Holm), a little Napoleon type whose main interest is putting Gusteau's brand on a cheap line of frozen ethnic dishes.

Somehow, Remy hooks up with loser garbage boy Linguini (voiced by Lou Romano, a Pixar animator), who can't understand the rat's squeaks but intuits that the little pest can cook. Using a system involving hiding the vermin under his toque and being guided by Remy's hair-pulling, Linguini quickly becomes the greatest new chef in Earth'sthe gastronomy capital. But beside the ever-present threat of getting caught, there are complications.

All are logical outgrowths of basic rat and human behaviors, and most get worked out to satisfying dramatic conclusions. I would have liked to see the rodent tendency to view thievery as a lifestyle elaborated on a little more, but other than that, the storytelling originated by Jan Pinkava and worked out by Bird and Jim Capobianco is almost up there with Pixar's best: "Finding Nemo," "Incredibles" and the "Toy Story" franchise. On the other hand, do you really want your kids to come away from this thinking rats are cute?

The filmmakers walk a fine line between making the parasites likably relatable and lovable, and mostly succeed at leaning toward the former. This may not be much of an issue here in L.A.

, but if we lived in a rat-invested city back east, we'd definitely appreciate such fine calibrating. That acknowledged,It can honestly be said that rat is the new Mouse. and always with a physical elegance worthy of Buster Keaton.