"Just wait until you see it in BluRay," boasted director Brad Bird when he was in Detroit to cook up interest in "Ratatouille," Pixar's most ambitious animated film.

I'm still waiting, but for the time being, I'm more than content with the standard-issue DVD (Disney), which is way too gorgeous to be called standard.

With "Ratatouille," computer animation finally achieves the warmth, artistry and detail of Disney's early hand-drawn masterpieces. The storytelling is a departure and a risky one. The film makes the main character, Remy (voiced by Patton Oswalt), a provincial rat with no taste for the garbage on which his family feeds. Instead, he dreams of being a chef and achieves that dream at a legendary restaurant that has fallen on hard times. Remy revives it from inside the toque of hapless kitchen sweeper Linguini (Lou Romano).

The story was more farcical and complicated than previous Pixar pictures, and it kept us occupied (and amused) in the theater. But at home, we now have the chance to fully appreciate the impeccable design — including the gleam of the cooking pots and the worn wooden floor of the kitchen, where most of the film is set.

The film captures the romantic glow of Paris in a way few live-action movies ever have.

Extras naturally abound and include "Lifted," the five-minute short shown before "Ratatouille" in theaters. The clever 11-minute "Your Friend the Rat" takes the form of one of those old educational films shown on "Disneyland" and "Mickey Mouse Club," with Remy and his less-sophisticated brother Emile leading us through a few centuries of rat history.

ALSO NEW THIS WEEK

Robert Towne's script for 1974's "Chinatown" is on just about any list of the best screenplays ever written. Seeing it in the new "Special Collector's Edition" (Paramount) reminds us that the Roman Polanski-directed film noir is also a visual stunner, a gorgeously dark and moody evocation of 1930s Los Angeles. Jack Nicholson stars as private eye J.J. (Jake) Gittes, who gets in a lot deeper than he intends to while trailing a Los Angeles city official suspected of cheating on his socialite wife (Faye Dunaway).