I guess I'm a sucker for cute animated films, so my pal Rebecca and I regressed about 13 years each and sat in a nearly-empty theater for The Tale of Despereaux. Based on the book by Katie DiCamilo, the film is set in the mythical kingdom of Dor, where medieval denizens live for their head chef's soup. One day the friendly, light-loving rat Roscuro (short for Chiaroscuro, which is awesome!, and voiced by Dustin Hoffman), accidentally causes the death of the queen. In retaliation, the king outlaws both soup and rats, causing the an eternal cloud to form over the city (no sun, but no rain). So now Roscuro is forced to live in the dingy dungeons with the other carniverous rats and the whole kingdom sits around being depressed, especially the fair Princess Pea (Emma Watson). Meanwhile, the residents of Mouse Town (located in the lower levels of the castle but not as low as the dungeons) are suffering from little Despereaux, a mouse born courageous. In mouse schools they are taught to fear everything, with emphasis on cowering and scurrying, and conformity is mandated.
Despereaux refuses to live up to his heritage and remains brave and adventurous, eventually meeting the princess and dedicating himself to rescuing her from her sadness and longing. Considered a danger to his peers, he is exiled to the rat dungeons, where he meets Roscuro and tells her of the princess. The rat is repentant and travels to her room hoping to make amends, but she freaks out because rats are illegal and refuses to listen to him. Roscuro is fed up with trying to talk to these stupid humans after he's been living in awful conditions for that one honest mistake, so he plots revenge. He convinces the maid Miggery, a feeble-minded girl who obsessively dreams of being a princess herself (often stealing fancy things from her room so she can play dress up), to kidnap Princess Pea and feed her to the rats. It's up to Despereaux to save her from the rats and Roscuro from himself, while figuring out a way to restore the kingdom to its soup-filled, sunny self.
This is a sweet, unique story constructed as a series of interconnected characters and events that come together in unexpected ways. It's layered and fairly complex for a children's movie, which I personally appreciated. I think a lot of kids' movies are too simple and condescending. It made it more interesting for me, but I guess it might be a little bit much for really young children. Which brings me to its rating: G is not at all appropriate; there are some truly frightening scenes and characters (especially this guy), with various deaths/near-deaths. I'm not bashing the movie for having those things, but I've seen various comments about how scared people's kids were and such, so it's important to know. Otherwise, it was a pretty fun time. Not Wall-e or anything, but a unique fantasy adventure with a strong voice cast.
I felt the animation was just so-so. The backgrounds and textures were noticibly wonderful, but the character design (specifically the humans) consisted mainly of pasty, angular, shiny faces that looked too hard. Despereaux's look was the most detailed and well-designed, and Roscuro's was pretty well-done. Which reminds me: Roscuro was awesome, and I kind of wish this could have been his movie. Despereaux was cute but simple, Miggery was creepy and obsessive, and Princess Pea was useless. Maybe it was Hoffman's marvelous voice, but Roscuro was the most interesting, coolest character. I liked the chef too, and his unexplained magical vegetable demon. Anyway, it's a pretty good movie, if it's your kind of thing. No great strides in animation but a nice adventure tale.
3.5/5
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
The Tale of Despereaux (2008)
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Much to comment on. First off, a small typo, perhaps? It says 4/4 stars, but you use a 5-star system, no?
ReplyDeleteAnyway, don't feel too bad about regression. Mrs. Fletch and I each traveled back decades to see this amongst the mommies and daddies and kiddies. She was dying to see it for the animation and style, and I can't blame her. I thought it looked great, and had no issues with the design of the human characters, as a) they match those of the children's book (iirc) and b) are somewhat faithful to the art of the era.
Agreed that Roscuro was the most interesting character. Desperaux might have been if they had chosen different vocal talent; don't get me wrong, I like Broderick, but his voice didn't seem right for the hero here.
Your issue with the rating and that one particular scary character got me to thinking about another movie with rats and other animals: The Secret of Nimh. Not necessarily agreeing or disagreeing on the accuracy of the rating here, but Nimh was rated G at the time of its release and, thought I haven't seen it in forever, I'm pretty sure it's much darker and scarier than Desperaux ever is.
Oops, thanks for catching the typo!
ReplyDeleteI thought of Nimh as I watched this as well. I loved the movie and the book when I was a kid, liking its darker tone. Didn't realize it was rated G though. PG would have been more appropriate, what with various animals dying and the more involved plot. I guess it's a hard thing to gauge. I only thought of Despereaux's rating after seeing angry comments from parents on imdb.