"Ratatouille" was probably the most highly anticipated movie of this year for me, and it didn't disappoint in the least! Pixar's lived up to their quality expectations once more, and director Brad Bird in particular can apparently do no wrong.

Entertaining story, great characterization, loads of humor and just plain stunning animation. Basically everything you need to make a great animated movie, but everything that seems to be missing from so many of them today. I'm a huge fan of traditional animation and not quite so much one of computer animation, but Pixar makes me forget that every time.

Surely I can't be the first to make the analogy, but one thing I liked so much about this movie is that it captures the spirit of great cartoons of old. It's like a more fully developed classic Looney Tunes cartoon (I'm specifically thinking of the ones by Chuck Jones). For some reason no one has apparently been able to capture that exact spirit for a few decades now (even great modern cartoons are just different) but that spirit is resurrected, alive and well in this film.

If you keep your eyes peeled you can even catch an obscure background cameo by an obscure villain from "The Incredibles" (along with a couple of other nods to past Pixar films, as is their custom every time).

The animated short that preceded the movie was cute too, but not my most favorite of their shorts.

I can't say any and everyone will love Ratatouille to the extreme degree to which I did, but I can pretty much promise any and everyone who likes good movies will really enjoy themselves.

Now when can I go see it again?

--Andrew

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