I love the way Ratatouille director Brad Bird pushes the edges of family entertainment ever so slightly. His last work was The Incredibles, which contained the somewhat uncomfortable specter of death -- the part where Mr. Incredible discovers many of the old superheroes had been killed off stung in the gut. A supposed kids' movie isn't supposed to make death feel this close, this threatening, is it?

But Bird apparently believes one of two things: either kids shouldn't be coddled, or that his movies aren't necessarily for kids. Either way, one of Ratatouille's earliest scenes involves a rifle-wielding granny suddenly discovering a rat infestation in her house.  Normally, all those rats should give anyone an icky feeling, and I'm no exception; but these rats are also kind of cute, and as they run from the rifle blasts, I naturally wanted to see them get away. But still -- all those rats! A kids' movie shouldn't be making rats cute, should it?

Bird's decision to work primarily in animation, which, in the U.S., sadly equals family fare, is at odds with his penchant for crafting stories filled with adult urgency, and I'm always happy to see he hasn't allowed the genre's expectations to stifle his creative side. Better yet, it doesn't stifle his subversive side either. On the surface, Ratatouille is a story about following your dreams, but more deeply, it's about understanding and following your talents. Added to this theme is the idea that talent is special: at first, the film has you believing its motto follows the one of a celebrity chef -- "Anyone can cook," he says -- but by the film's end, that concept will have been slyly subverted.

Kids' movies these days subscribe too easily to the simplistic notion that anyone can accomplish anything they desire, and Bird must see a potential pitfall in encouraging others to succeed in areas they may not necessarily be suited for. He communicates an idea that all people are not necessarily created equal in regards to the things they may naturally be good at (indeed, they may each be naturally good at different things). The Incredibles showed this by contrasting the superheroes' amazing and varying inborn abilities against those of its villain, Syndrome. He had no super powers but wanted to become a superhero; bitterness at not being able to accept not having powers leads him to become a villain.

Ratatouille follows up the idea of talent not being an entitlement by saying discovered talents should be nurtured. The main character, a lovable rat named Remy (voice of Patton Oswalt), has a natural talent for cooking -- the problem is, well, he's a rat. But he finds a way to exercise his abilities through a partnership with a pushover wannabe-chef named Linguini (voice of Lou Romano). Linguini can't cook a lick, but working with Remy gives him a way to pretend that he can. The direction in which this story goes is surprising -- in any other contemporary animated film, we could expect a certain outcome -- for Linguini in particular -- but Bird, instead, doesn't go for any kind of pandering denouement, and the movie is ten times better for it.

The film is filled with layers of rich delight, both in themes and technical achievements. It is, frankly, a beautiful looking movie, with the character designs of the rats semi-realistic in bodies and movement, and the designs of the humans delightfully cartoony. Any new computer-animated feature scores bragging points by showing what it can do with water and with hair, and this movie increases the bar. And its technique is in harmony with its theme of longing for more artistic appreciation. To Remy (and a few other characters, including the food critic Anton Ego, voiced by Peter O'Toole), eating isn't just eating -- good cooking is an art and should be savored. Likewise, Bird and the Pixar studio take pride in their animation, even including a disclaimer in the end credits that says it's 100% percent pure animation -- no motion captured was used in the creation of this movie!

Ratatouille is not without problems; a few things bothered me here and there. For instance, in its Paris setting, why do some of the more minor characters have French accents, while many of the major ones do not? And then there's the idea of making rats cute again -- how is a parent supposed to explain, afterwards, that rats aren't cute and often carry diseases? I can forgive that one a little more easily because I was born in the year of the Rat; all kidding aside, I'm glad Bird decides explaining such things should not be his problem. Animation shouldn't be just for kids -- animation should be used to tell good stories, like any other mode of cinema. And, with its many strengths, Ratatouille is a great story, and a great movie.

(Released by Walt Disney/Pixar and rated "G" as suitable for all ages.)

Review also posted at www.windowtothemovies.com.