Few people like a rat, especially with its grubby hands wrapped around your baguette. Remy, the well-meaning rodent in "Ratatouille," kind of grows on you, though.

A rat ahead of his time, or any time, Remy is an otherwise ordinary French rat with the ability to sniff out and even whip up a stunning French meal, no easy trick for even advanced chefs. In the Disney-Pixar computer-animated world, this ability allows Remy to take a whirlwind adventure as the most unlikely of French chefs.

Finding his way to the kitchen of his hero, the late, legendary chef Gasteau, Remy knows he's not wanted. Unable to stay away, he soon finds himself the unlikely mentor to the kitchen garbage boy, the somewhat dim Linguini, badly in need of self esteem.

With Remy sitting inside Linguini's chef hat, offering him cooking advice based only on aroma and gut instincts, the rat helps the lad become the new toast of Paris cuisine, pleasing even a notoriously crusty and snooty critic with the surname Ego. (As if!)

The beauty of this arrangement is interrupted, though, when a bitter former chef recently driven out becomes wise, alerts the health department, and causes all sorts of trouble. The question becomes if the public will accept a rat in the kitchen, even if he is a master.

"Ratatouille" is an ode to foodies and the beauty of cooking, also a wild ride kind of thing that sends its characters on more than one high-speed excursion through the charming streets of Paris.

Directed by Brad Bird, who guided "The Incredibles," the more classical-in-tone "Ratatouille" is equal parts danger and sophistication, and the mix is a delight.