Although Pixar produced hits with each of their seven films prior to 2007, some questioned the prospects for that year’s Ratatouille. Anyone could deliver box office gold with a flick about NASCAR, for instance.

However, a film about a rat who wants to be a French chef? That seemed like a stretch in terms of potential financial success.

But the Pixar streak remained intact – for the time being, at least. No, the movie didn’t reach the mega-grosses of the biggest Pixar hits, but no one should sneeze at Ratatouille’s $204 million US take.

The film also earned fine reviews. Pixar eventually faltered, but that day didn’t come in 2007.

Set in Paris, Ratatouille introduces us to Remy (voiced by Patton Oswalt), a rat with high ambitions. While the other rodents happily dine on whatever trash they can find, he prefers fancier food.

Remy also develops a talent as a chef via the cookbooks he reads. Written by Chef Gusteau (Brad Garrett), these advertise that “anyone can cook”, so why not a rat? Circumstances separate Remy from his family, and he ends up at…

…Gusteau’s, the establishment once run by his favorite chef. Alas, the restaurant has fallen on hard times. After the place lost one of its five stars due to a vicious review from critic Anton Ego (Peter O’Toole), Gusteau dropped into a funk and died.

This meant the loss of another star, so the three-star Gusteau’s continues mostly as a tourist trap. Current head chef Skinner (Ian Holm) sees the Gusteau name as little more than a franchise to be exploited, so he milks it for all the money he can grab.

Into this setting steps Alfredo Linguini (Lou Romano), the son of Gusteau’s old flame Renata. When his mom passes, she leaves a letter that gets him a job as garbage boy at Gusteau’s.

After Alfredo messes up some soup, Remy fixes it. Of course, Alfredo gets the credit for this and earns a promotion. Since he boasts no actual culinary talent, he needs help to make this work.

Remy becomes his cooking guide and manipulates him on the job. The movie follows their partnership along with a mix of related complications.

When I saw director Brad Bird’s first Pixar flick – 2004’s Incredibles - theatrically, I wasn’t wild about it. However, a subsequent screening changed my mind, and I came to really embrace the movie.

My initial take on Ratatouille went along the same lines. While I enjoyed that theatrical viewing, the movie didn’t quite set my world on fire. I hoped that my second time would open it up to me and reveal more of its charms.

But that didn’t happen – and I remained lukewarm after third and fourth viewings. To be sure, I think Ratatouille provides an enjoyable experience. It goes with more of a character base than most animated films, and the setting allows us to dig into them – to a degree.

Remy gets the best development, which makes sense since he’s the lead. I think we need more investigation of Alfredo, though, since he also plays such a prominent part.

The film leaves him as little more than the hapless dork who gets lucky. We don’t learn a lot about his background or much else, factors that leave him as a bit of a cipher. Since the flick’s called Ratatouille, this remains a fairly insubstantial concern, but it leaves a hole anyway.

The characters tend to lead the story instead of the other way around, and that’s a nice trend. Too many films force their characters to react to goofy events instead of allowing the participants a substantial impact on their environments. Ratatouille balances the two sides well, and it creates an involving little universe of its own.

I just wish I could say that it enchants me more than it does. Something about the film keeps me at a distance, though during the climax, it threatens to draw me in to a more substantial degree. The big scene in which the restaurant critic arrives offers the flick’s most memorable scenes and its emotional peak.

Otherwise, it leaves me a bit cold. I like the characters and take interest in the scenarios but never as more than a semi-distant observer.

And that’s where I stay. Perhaps eventually I’ll warm up to Ratatouille in a more substantial way.

A lot of people seem to really like it, but a lot of people also adored Finding Nemo, another Pixar effort that never quite made it for me.

To be sure, this is a well-executed effort with lots of charm and humor. It simply doesn’t do a ton for me.

Ratatouille appears in an aspect ratio of approximately 2.39:1 on this Blu-ray Disc. Everything here looked great.

Sharpness remained immaculate at all times. If any examples of softness materialized here, I didn’t notice them, so the flick seemed crisp and detailed from start to finish.

No issues with jagged edges or shimmering appeared, and I saw no edge haloes. Source flaws were completely absent as well.

With a warm, natural palette, Ratatouille produced consistently attractive hues. The colors came across as vivid and dynamic throughout the film, and HDR added range to the tones.

Blacks appeared deep and firm, while low-light shots demonstrated nice clarity and delineation. HDR brought impact to whites and contrast. This was an appealing transfer.

Though not quite as strong, the Dolby Atmos soundtrack of Ratatouille satisfied. Downconverted to Dolby TrueHD 7.1, the soundfield offered enough to create a good sense of setting.

Only a few particularly active sequences materialized. Rainstorms provided a nice liveliness, and Remy’s ride through the sewers stood as the movie’s most dynamic scene.

Otherwise, matters stayed in the subdued realm. We got some good localized dialogue, and music showed nice stereo imaging.

The effects usually bolstered the ambience, with only the occasional exception like those mentioned earlier. The elements added to the movie in a general subtle manner, though these components spread in a way that made them engaging and satisfying.

I thought the quality of the audio seemed strong. Music was bright and bold, and effects fell into the same realm. Both of those aspects showed good range and dynamics.

Speech sounded natural and concise, with no edginess or other problems. The movie boasted a consistently pleasing soundtrack.

How did the 4K UHD compare to the Blu-ray release? Audio quality felt similar, but the Atmos mix track offered a more expansive soundscape – not quite enough of an improvement to change my “B+” to an “A-“, but close.

Visuals boasted superior delineation, colors and blacks. This turned into a nice upgrade across the board.

No extras appear on the 4K disc itself, but we find a mix on the included Blu-ray copy, where we get two animated shorts. A cartoon that accompanied the theatrical release of Ratatouille, Lifted (5:01) shows an alien force that tries to extricate a guy from his house with limited success.

A clever twist on the usual alien abduction theme, this one feels like a Looney Tunes short – and I mean that as a compliment. It’s a lot of fun.

Your Friend the Rat (11:16) is new to home video. Here Remy and brother Emile detail the evolution of the rat over the centuries.

It uses a style reminiscent of those semi-educational Disney shorts from the 1950s. I like the mix of visual techniques and think it’s a lively and fun way to tell us a little about these much-maligned rodents.

Gusteau’s Gourmet Game requires you to assemble ingredients to make meals. I found it to be tedious and not much fun.

Cine-Explore offers a mix of components. Of prime interest, it gives us an audio commentary with director Brad Bird and producer Brad Lewis.

Both sit together for this running, screen-specific discussion of story/character areas, various design and cinematography choices, cast and performances, cast and performances, animation, music and audio, themes and influences, and connected topics.

Expect a delightful chat from Lewis and (especially) Bird, as they give us a terrific view of the film. They mix technical and creative elements well, and that ensures the commentary never becomes dry or dull.

I especially like Bird’s insights into the changes he made after he came onto the production. (Bird took over for Jan Pinkava in 2005.) The track moves well and becomes a fine examination of the film.

After the commentary, we continue the “Cine-Explore” elements via Animation Briefings. This area includes 13 segments with a total running time of 14 minutes, 25 seconds.

Introduced by supervising animator Dylan Brown, we follow meetings between Brad Bird and others that discuss the development of various scenes. I like this kind of “fly on the wall” piece and this becomes a fun collection.

“Cine-Explore” continues with 10 Documentary Shorts. These fill a total of 50 minutes, 58 seconds and include notes from Brad Bird, Brad Lewis, character designer Tony Fucile, groom supervisor Sanjay Bakshi, lead groom artist Laura Hainke, story artist Peter Sohn, shading art director Belinda Van Valkenburg, production designer Harley Jessup, associate producer Galyn Susman, directors of photography/lighting Robert Anderson and Sharon Calahan, co-director Jan Pinkava, story supervisor Mark Andrews, senior camera operator Shawn Brennan, supervising animator Dylan Brown, sets/layout manager and production sous chef Michael Warch, story Jim Capobianco, character designer Jason Deamer, film editor Darren Holmes, actor Lou Romano, composer Michael Giacchino, conductor/orchestrator Tim Simonek, musicians Karl Vincent, Victor Lawrence and Bobby Shulgold, music scoring mixer Dan Wallin, character designer teddy Newton, production artist Nate Wragg, Your Friend the Rat director Jim Capobianco, and animators Doug Dooley, Bret Parker, Robert Russ, Jean Claude Tran, Gini Santos, Jaime Landes, Kureha Yokoo, Amber Martorelli, Sarah Mercey-Boose, Matt Majers, Don Crum, Kristophe Vergne, John Kahrs, and Doug Frankel.

The “Documentary Shorts” look at the depiction of rats in the film as well as other character areas, creating Paris in animation, virtual camerawork, restaurant design and research, various other visual areas/choices, music, and connected areas.

Though they don’t form a coherent program, the “Shorts” shed a lot of light on the production. Even the potentially cutesy look at Giacchino shot by his young son works well. This turns into a nice batch of featurettes.

Three Deleted Scenes fill a total of 15 minutes, six seconds. We get “Chez Gusteau” (3:56), “Meet Gusteau” (5:57) and “First Day” (5:12).

“Chez” offers a 3-D storyreel view of a long shot that pans into the restaurant to show us Remy’s introduction to the place. “Meet” comes from a version of the flick in which Gusteau isn’t dead. (He’s also alive in the “Chez” clip.)

This is similar to the scene in which Skinner discusses frozen food marketing; here Gusteau is part of the process and not an exploited dead guy. It also develops Remy and Alfredo a little.

Finally, “Day” shows an alternate look at Alfred’s introduction to the job. None of these differ radically from anything in the final film, though the lavish nature of “Chez” makes it stand out from the others. They’re interesting to see.

All of these clips come with video bits to tell us about them. Director Brad Bird chats about “Chez” and “Meet”, while producer Brad Lewis and story man Jim Capobianco discuss “Day”.

We learn about the clips and find out why they didn’t make the final film. The notes about the choice to kill Gusteau are the most useful, though all of them provide good info.

“Cine-Explore” finishes with Deleted Shots RIP. Billed as “a tribute to shots cut from the final film”, the three-minute, 12 second collection covers five cut snippets.

Supervising animator Marc Walsh tells us how upsetting it can be to get work eliminated from the film, and we then see a black-and-white, mock-serious reel in which various Pixar animators mourn the death of their shots. It’s somewhat pointless but still amusing.

A featurette called Fine Food and Film: A Conversation with Brad Bird and Thomas Keller lasts 13 minutes, 54 seconds. Here we get comments with writer/director Bird and chef Keller in separate sessions.

Their remarks draw parallels between the creative techniques behind the creation of movies and food. They also chat about how they got into their respective fields and grew in them.

The information can be interesting, though I think the featurette stretches in the way it attempts to connect Bird and Keller. I’d prefer two separate pieces – or just one about Bird’s work, as the info about the chef doesn’t particularly interest me.

Two more elements fill out the disc. The Will (1:49) lets us view alternate ways to score a scene, as composer Michael Giacchino tells us in a 54-second introduction.

We can check out the sequence with the original score or the altered music used in the final film. This becomes an interesting way to see how score affects a scene’s impact.

Remembering Dan Lee (3:00) offers comments from art director Harley Jessup, character designer Ricky Nierva , art director Ralph Eggleston, story artist Nate Stanton, production manager Jonas Rivera, director Andrew Stanton, and character designer Greg Dykstra.

Pixar artist Dan Lee passed during the film’s production of Ratatouille, and this short piece acts as a nice tribute.

The Blu-ray opens with previews for WALL-E,Sleeping Beauty, Tinker Bell, Cars, Pixar Short Films Collection Volume 1 and Meet the Robinsons. No trailer for Ratatouille appears here.

Through multiple screenings, I kept hoping I’d embrace Ratatouille, but no breakthrough ever came. I enjoyed the film and found much to like about it, but it lacked that certain kick that would allow me to really love it. The 4K UHD delivers excellent visuals as well as solid audio and bonus materials. Fans will enjoy this terrific release.

To rate this film, visit the DVD review of RATATOUILLE