8. The Rats Take Over The Kitchen - Ratatouille
Pixar's movies tend to follow two mismatched characters (Woody & Buzz, Marlin & Dory, WALL-E & EVE, etc.) as they go on some kind of journey and become friends. Brad Bird's terrific
Ratatouille is no different. Pairing an incompetent cook with a master chef rat, Linguini and Remy work together to become the talk of the town in Paris. Obviously, the identity of the real cook must be kept a mystery, so Remy spends most of the film controlling Linguini by amusingly pulling his hair to give him directions. For a while, it works out fine as Remy gets to live his dream of being a cook and Linguini moves up through the ranks at the restaurant. But when Linguini has to own up and tell his coworkers the truth, he's left without a staff before the biggest night of his career. Dejected, Linguini leaves the restaurant as Remy ponders what to do. Enter the members of his rat clan. The underlying theme of
Ratatouille is making a name for yourself and pursuing your dreams. Remy is torn between being a chef in the human world and living his life as a rat with the rest of his kind. His father tries to push him towards embracing the rats, but when he sees how much cooking means to his son, he offers to help Remy accomplish his goal. In a very entertaining sequence, we see all of the rats from Remy's clan cook all the meals for the customers (under Remy's tutelage obviously). It's a great moment of people (or... rats) working together to overcome the odds. Anyone can cook, indeed. It's somewhat inspirational. This moment also leads to Anton Ego's glowing review where he admits how wrong he was for mocking the film's motto and puts his reputation as a food critic on the line in a courageous act. Not only that, we get the bust-out-loud-laughing bit where the rats tie up the health inspector and lock him in the closet.