The American CGI animated anthropomorphic animal film has certainly grown to the brink of over-saturation in the past few years. Lucky for us, Pixar has managed to weather the storm with continually engaging films.

Even if they haven't hit the extraordinary heights of the Toy Story films, Finding Nemo, or The Incredibles, the studio continues to impress audiences with not only its incredible animation, but masterful storytelling. Pixar's latest effort is the much-underrated Ratatouille, now available on DVD.

Remy (Patton Oswalt) is a rat living in the French countryside, who dreams of leaving his family of food scavengers behind and making it big as a world-class chef like the legendary Auguste Gusteau. However, he must contend with tending to the needs of his fellow rats, including his older brother Emile (Peter Sohn) and his father Django (Brian Dennehy), who dissuade him from embracing any aspect of the human world.

When the rats are booted from the house they secretly inhabit, Remy gets separated from his family and ends up in the city of Paris. When he stumbles onto the restaurant founded by Gusteau, which has since diminished in reputation since his death, Remy gets the chance to test his mettle, inadvertently causing a bumbling busboy named Alfredo Linguini (Lou Romano) to gain a reputation as a uniquely talented chef.

Soon Remy befriends Linguini and makes him a popular chef in the restaurant. Soon, he begins drawing ire from colleagues like female chef Collette (Janeane Garofalo), who he secretly likes, and former sous-chef-turned-corrupt owner Skiner (Ian Holm), who constantly weasels to get rid of his new star employee when he discovers he is the rightful heir to the restaurant.

However, soon enough, Linguini is inherited new ownership of the restaurant. However, the two friends face their greatest challenge as Remy must deal with being found by his rat family and Linguini must deal with Anton Ego (Peter O'Toole), a tough food critic who's negative review caused the diminishment of Gusteau's career as a chef.

Ratatouille continues to show Pixar as the one true creative studio in CGI animation. It also shows Brad Bird as a force to be reckoned with in animated film, after his two previously high-quality films The Iron Giant and The Incredibles.

In a field growing incredibly over-saturated by lesser films, Ratatouile is an exceptional CGI animated film due to its quirky character designs, fantastic animation, and fantastic voice performances, particularly Peter O'Toole. It also wins with a more simplistic story that pushes the still fairly limited boundaries of American animated film with an emphasis more on comedy and character development.

While the film deserves credit for its considerable ambitiousness, its laboriousness shows by the ¾ point as the film becomes a little too long in the tooth. However, despite that, its strengths greatly outweigh its weaknesses as it relies on great storytelling