Remy lives next to the kitchen of a well-known bistro in Paris; he has a keen appreciation of fine food that the rest of his family entirely lacks, and dreams of one day becoming a master chef. Hes also a rat. If he shows up in the kitchen he'll be killed on sight (usually with a cleaver lobbed through the air; cartoon kitchens seem to be an excellent source of sharp implements, although somewhat lacking in things like egg whisks)... but this only makes him more determined to succeed when a young boy, struggling to keep a job at a restaurant, approaches him for help.

Now that it's no longer possible to take two steps without tripping over a new animated CGI feature, it's worth pointing out this is the eighth feature from Pixar, the company that started it all... which means that even if the premise of the film doesn't appeal to you in the least (and by the way, am I the only one who thought Pixar's last film, Cars, was a chilling vision of a nightmarish, post-apocalyptic future? Apparently so), you should see the film anyway: it's bound to offer you something unexpected, perhaps even great.'