The French have a word to describe "Ratatouille," the tale of a provincial rat named Remy who becomes a great Parisian chef. The word is "génial." Not genial as in cheerful, though Pixar's latest animated feature is certainly that, but génial with an accent, as in brilliant, or inspired. The characters are irresistible -- why would anyone want to resist a hero who so gallantly transcends his rattiness? -- the animation is astonishing and the film, a fantasy version of a foodie rhapsody, sustains a level of joyous invention that hasn't been seen in family entertainment since "The Incredibles."

The uncommon denominator of both productions is Brad Bird, the writer-director-cum-field marshal who, once again, has led an army of artists and technicians in the making of a film that feels both personal and classic. There's the same unerring showmanship, which makes a complex story seem luminously logical, the same delight in hurtling motion, sophisticated comedy (which flatters kids and grownups alike) and copious detail. Instead of using the kitchen of a fancy French restaurant as a picturesque background, "Ratatouille" explores the workplace and its frenzied rituals -- as well as its intricate hierarchy -- with a screwball zest worthy of the sainted Julia Child. And Remy slices, dices and cooks with thrilling ingenuity that overcomes his dual deficits in standing and stature.

But is the world ready for a movie that sees an upwardly mobile rodent in a kitchen as a cause for celebration, rather than extermination? Once you've met the clean little rat in question, and registered the high preposterousness of the premise -- not to mention the elegance of the execution -- the answer is yes. Remy is a born foodie: "If you are what you eat, I only want to eat the good stuff." And he's a dreamer who uses his highly refined sniffer to follow his bliss. What makes him so endearing, though -- and surely winning to kids -- is that he's a quintessential outcast, an underrat who's first reviled by the very people who come to lionize him.

When Pixar Animation Studios released "The Incredibles" in 2004, the company served notice that its computer animation techniques could rival or excel much of the action in live-action movies. Now Pixar, as part of Disney, has taken those techniques to new heights of virtuosity -- and new depths, during a vertiginous ride through the City of Light's sewers. (Although the complexities of fluid dynamics have posed formidable problems for animators, the results here are so convincing that you wonder if they cheated by pouring water into their computers.) "Ratatouille's" tour de force sequence turns on a partnership between Remy and the restaurant's dishwasher, a clueless, gangly kid named Linguini. The rat cooks by remote control as he rides, like a cross between a puppeteer and a mahout, inside Linguini's toque. Their wild dance is repeated a bit too often, but it's the funniest thing of its kind since Steve Martin's body was possessed by Lily Tomlin's spirit in "All Of Me."

The cast of characters is large, remarkably varied and wonderfully voiced, especially Ian Holm's Skinner, the restaurant's dwarfish, dictatorial head chef; Janeane Garofalo's Colette, a feminist chef with a passion to succeed in a milieu dominated by men, and Peter O'Toole's Anton Ego, a food critic of vulpine physique and acidulous demeanor. Anton is, as you might guess, an insufferable esthete, but he is also, bless his caustic soul, eager for new experiences. And so it falls to him to taste, and savor, the vegetable dish of the movie's title in a moment of comic revelation that is nothing short of sublime.

'Sicko'

When the government stripped Mr. Incredible of his superhero status in "The Incredibles," he was reduced to working in the claims department of an HMO, where his job was to deny claims. His testimony would have been a worthy addition to "Sicko," though Michael Moore's argumentative blogumentary about health care is shockingly funny -- and sometimes genuinely shocking -- without him. Mr. Moore sees the United States as a nation in denial, so much so that we've slipped to number 37 in a World Health Organization ranking, just ahead of Slovenia. Lashing out with Swiftian scorn at a system that leaves almost 50 million Americans uninsured, he finds ample reason for outrage in scarifying stories told not only by the uninsured but by those whose insurance companies failed or betrayed them. Just as Al Gore did with global warming in "An Inconvenient Truth," he frames the health care crisis in moral and ethical terms. "Who are we?" he asks. "Is this what we've become?"

One might also ask what's new here. Coming at a time when America's health care system is being scrutinized and debated as never before, "Sicko" covers familiar ground. Yet the question misses the point, for the movie's appeal lies at the intersection of its timing and style. Precisely because our concerns about health care have become so immediate, and because the production package is so entertaining, the shrewdly titled "Sicko" may help stimulate the debate.

But -- and yes, with a Michael Moore film there is always a but -- the filmmaker can't leave ill enough alone. With hardly a nod toward critical thinking, he represents the universal health care systems in Canada, Britain and France as essentially flawless through the use of ardent interview subjects, extravagant praise and slippery rhetorical devices.

And the claims he makes for those countries are positively modest in comparison to his discovery of health-care heaven in Cuba (which happens to be 39th in that W.H.O. ranking, a fact that can be gleaned from a fleeting close-up of the list but one that's never mentioned in the course of the film). It's bitterly funny when the filmmaker seeks treatment for a group of chronically ill Sept. 11 rescue volunteers by taking them on a boat to the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, where, he contends, Al Qaeda prisoners get better medical care than mainland Americans. Yet it's embarrassing when the jaunty provocateur turns earnest propagandist and sails off with his ad hoc wards to Havana, where doctors and nurses are happy to minister to their new patients on camera. (It's also embarrassing that our Treasury Department has put Mr. Moore under investigation for possible violations of the trade embargo against Cuba.) Lots of "Sicko" stands as boffo political theater, but its major domo lost me by losing his sense of humor.

'Live Free or Die Hard'

Don't judge "Live Free or Die Hard" by its title, which sounds like a license-plate motto, or make snide assumptions, as I did, about the impending death of the "Die Hard" franchise. John McClane, the New York cop played by Bruce Willis, may be long in the tooth, but he hasn't lost his bite. This fourth iteration of a series that first burst upon the world in 1988 turns out to be terrific entertainment, and startlingly shrewd in the bargain, a combination of minimalist performances -- interestingly minimalist -- and maximalist stunts that make you laugh, as you gape, at their thunderous extravagance.

The film was directed by Len Wiseman from a smart, fluent script by Mark Bomback. The plot involves a cyber plot -- a computer-based attack against American institutions, particularly financial institutions, on a scale so vast that the good guys (at the FBI) as well as the bad guys (in a mobile facility that looks like a Best Buy showroom) call the concerted attack a Fire Sale -- "everything goes." And the shrewdest part of the film is its teaming of the creaky (but buff) McClane, who's derided by a baddie as a "Timex in a digital age," with a young computer whiz named Matt Farrell; he's played by Justin Long, the casually charming actor who embodies the cool Mac in those Apple commercials that make fun of Microsoft's Windows. (Timothy Olyphant gives another strong performance as the Fire Sale's mastermind, Gabriel.)

The Mac's cool carries over, but "Live Free Or Die Hard" warms it up by putting it in a moral context; Matt must redeem himself, however frightened by the danger he may be, because he wrote the mutating encryption algorithm -- I'm just quoting from my notes -- that gave the Fire Sale program its basic structure. All of this is an elaborate excuse, of course, for the taciturn John McClane to take endless punishment in the course of saving civilization, while kung fu fighters fight, a Harrier jump jet harries an 18-wheeler and a cop car goes airborne to bring a chopper down. Good for him, and for us.

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DVD TIP: I've recommended it before, but I keep meeting parents and kids who haven't heard of "The Iron Giant" (1999). Brad Bird's debut feature about a boy and his alien robot isn't on a par with "The Incredibles" or "Ratatouille" -- how could it be, and what is? -- but the film is pretty great in its own right.