My sister asked what I thought about Ratatouille, so I thought I'd give my thoughts. Overall, I wouldn't say it was the best Pixar movie ever, but it was definitely up to the Pixar quality.

Of course, it looked amazing. Paris looked exactly like Paris. Everything had those little touches that you'd barely notice but make it that much more life-like. On one of the web featurettes they talked about how they vastly improved the movement and rendering models for humans, and it definitely showed as people were more detailed and expressive than ever. Most of the time, I thought the animation looked so realistic I almost forgot I was watching an animated movie.

I have to admit, I thought the idea of a rat cooking sounded a bit odd. And, at least at first, it was a bit awkward to watch Linguini, a boring young man who didn't really want to have a life, to get poked and prodded by a rat into becoming the best cook in town. I'm not really sure that I enjoyed that the point is again that really PC-style "everyone is beautiful" and "everyone should be accepted for their talents, no matter what they look like," because it's become so clichéd.

Overall, though, it was lots of fun. I definitely enjoyed the scenes in the kitchen, especially from the perspective of a rat scurrying about. Also, I enjoyed the character of the cynical, snobby food critic and his monologue near the end which really will ring true for anyone who is a critic of one sort or another. I think you should definitely check the movie out. Seriously. It's definitely the best of the year so far.