Ratatouille

Remy (Oswalt) is a rat with a dream...he wishes he were a chef. Undeterred by the obvious problems associated with being a Rat-Chef, namely working in a rodent-phobic environment and not being unable to utilize human speech, Remy finds himself in the culinary capitol of the world, Paris, and sets out to realize his ultimate fantasy. With the help of a newfound friend, Linguini (Romano), a shy garbage boy in Gasteau's restaurant, he creates a big buzz in the press after a notoriously difficult critic takes one bite of his Ratatouille. (Stacey Pendry)

The special features that are the same as on the DVD include a 14-minute featurette entitled "Fine Food And Film," two animated Pixar short Films: "Lifted" (five minutes) and "Your Friend The Rat" (11 minutes), and three deleted scenes. Additional special features not included on the DVD include "Cine-Explore" features that allow you to customize your own behind-the-scenes experience with 13 "Animation Briefings," ten "Documentary Shorts," and five R.I.P. Deleted Scenes. There is also "Gasteau's Gourmet Game," a one-minute featurette "The Will," the final score and alternate score options, and the three-minute "Remembering Dan Lee" featurette.

The anamorphically enhanced 2.34:1 DVD looks superb, with great color fidelity and very well-resolved details in the shadows. The image can look very dimensional, helping make the computer-generated imagery look very realistic. The details in the animation are breathtaking, and while contrast is nicely balanced, it is not as bright and colorful as most animated titles are. Edge enhancement is negligible, but compression artifacts can be noticed on occasion, and some scenes can look somewhat soft. Otherwise, it is an impressive image. The Blu-ray Disc's H.264 AVC encoding features incredible detail with rich, bold colors that really pop from the screen. The great care that was taken in rendering the computer-generated images really shines in high-definition. This is a spectacular image. (Danny Richelieu)

The Dolby® Digital Surround EX 5.1-channel soundtrack features superb dynamics and good articulation, especially in low-level effects. Phantom imaging can be good, although it is rather limited in the surround field, which generally just creates points of sound emanating directly from the loudspeakers' physical locations. The added center-surround channel does increase the surround stage fill, but the lack of true phantom imaging is still recognizable. Dialogue sounds very natural, although there are times when it can sound too obviously close miked and stuffy. Still, this is a very enjoyable soundtrack. The Blu-ray Disc's uncompressed linear PCM encoding features very good fidelity with a noticeable increase in dynamic range that adds even more realism to the soundtrack. This improvement in fidelity cannot make up for the shortfalls of the mix, but it is a very enjoyable sonic experience. (Danny Richelieu)