A rat in the kitchen of a five-star Parisian restaurant? Oy. The place would empty out fast. But a rat in charge of the kitchen? Double oy.

	Remy the Rat has Paris in "Ratatouille." Click photo for larger image. 'Ratatouille' Voices: Brian Dennehy, Janeane Garofalo, Ian Holm, Peter O'Toole, Lou Romano, Patton Oswalt. Director: Brad Bird. Rating: G. Web site:disney.go.com Related articles It's a Bird ... it's a rat ... it's Brad Bird, director

"Ratatouille" is a wickedly conceived, marvelously executed new cartoon feature with perverse Pixar appeal to large- and small-fry alike. Oscar-winning director Brad Bird ("The Incredibles") knows that rodents have a long, glorious animated tradition -- from Mickey, Minnie and Mighty Mouse on down. But mice are one thing. Rats are another.

The resident rodent here is Remy, whose miraculous olfactory sense can identify the exact ingredients of any food he smells. It's a useful skill (he can instantly detect rat poison), but it has turned him into something of a snob. He eschews the pedestrian urban garbage beloved of his peers and, instead, waxes ecstatic on the delicacies. Saffron sends him swooning. Flambees fuel his fantasies.

Such cultivated tastes go unappreciated by his ratty family and colony. But Remy dreams of becoming a great chef despite his obvious occupational disability: Gourmet cooking is a tough gig for a rat in Paris.

Nevertheless, he makes his way to the famed restaurant of his culinary idol Auguste Gusteau, whose motto ("Anyone can cook!") is Remy's inspiration. There, he watches a shy garbage boy named Linguini botch an assignment to make soup -- and fixes it up for him brilliantly. Thereafter, their surreptitious partnership becomes the toast of culinary Paris. But they must steer clear of a villainous head chef (who has a comb-over of seven hairs and is promoting Chop Suey Pockets). And, in the end, they have to come up with the finest ratatouille in France.

Not least of "Ratatouille's" risks is its user-unfriendly title. For the record, that exotic dish is a vegetable stew made of eggplant, zucchini, tomatoes, onions and peppers and flavored with garlic, basil and other herbs, served hot or cold.

The film is an exotic comic dish full of finely choreographed slapstick, rat-race chases and multitextured sound, set and light design -- a technical marvel. Remy navigating the bilge-water rapids of Paris' sewers rivals the epic "Fantasia" scene of Mickey swirling in the vortex of the flood he unleashed as the Sorcerer's Apprentice.

Highly amusing are the scenes in which ratso-Remy, hiding under Linguini's toque, controls the boy like a marionette, tugging on his hair to indicate what his hands should do. The Paris settings and atmosphere are beautifully rendered, but it's the mouth-watering realism of the food creations that steals the show.

Plus Peter O'Toole. The voices of Patton Oswalt (Remy), Lou Romano (Linguini) and Janeane Garofalo (his tough girlfriend, Colette) are all fine -- but it's O'Toole's voicing of Anton Ego, the vicious dining critic, that is most hilarious. (Ego opines in one column that Gusteau "will find his place in history alongside another famous chef -- Boyardee!")

Cutting-edge Pixar has consistently produced animated adventures with unique characters: "Toy Story" I & II, "Monsters Inc.," "Finding Nemo," "The Incredibles," "Cars" -- all full of visual excitement. What separates Pixar from its mediocre rivals in CGI animation is (a) intelligence and (b) the ability to create honestly lovable heroes.

"Ratatouille" is Pixar's first entry since being purchased by Disney for a sum roughly equivalent to the gross national product of Belgium. Its moral, according to the studio, is that "Remy learns the truth about friendship, family and having no choice but to be who he really is" -- which is, of course, identical to the moral of all other Disney films.

But you're not going for the moral. You're going, if you go, for the fact that "Ratatouille" is an irresistible souffle of verbal and visual wit, to say nothing of Gallic sophistication. It ranks with "Nemo" and "Incredibles," again proving Bird to be one of the most creative film artists of our time.

Forget "Shrek" 3 (and 4 and 5 and 6 ...). This is adult-friendly fare, ideal for parents looking to enjoy time spent in a theater with their kids for something far more delightful than the usual summer-screen mayhem.

Too bad Julia Child isn't here to see it, but I've channeled a message from her: She ratifies "Ratatouille" from beyond.