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From a whisker to a scheme
THE TALES OF DESPERAUX
Directed by Sam Fell
Certificate U
IT is a pretty hard job to make the story of a super-cute mouse who sets out to save the life of a princess comprehensively charmless – but this adaptation of the hugely popular children’s book has managed to do so, with bells on.
It is a grand shame. The story by New York author Kate DiCamillo is a wonderful romp – imaginative, pushing all the buttons under-10s want pushed. But this film falls into a trap of forgetting that children don’t need a condescending narrator feeding them moralistic claptrap to know the
difference between the goodies and baddies.
The tale goes like this: Despereaux is a mouse who won’t conform to what a mouse is meant to be, that is, timid and scared. Instead he’s a brave little so and so, and one day, when sent into the castle’s library to learn how to eat paper, he becomes enthralled by reading instead of nibbling. He demolishes a tale about a brave knight rescuing a princess, and decides that’s the life for him.
Long before we meet our hero, we are treated to 30 minutes of back story, featuring a ship’s rat who accidentally induces the death of a queen by falling into her soup, and the repercussions of the king’s grief.
The story takes place in the Kingdom of Dor, which happens to be soup crazy – and perhaps the best part of the film features Andre the chef trying to create a spectacular soup to do his country’s annual soup-themed holiday justice. And because of the scandal of a rat in the soup, the kingdom loses its raison d’etre, and drought and misery stalks the land. Dor needs a hero: enter stage Bottom, our little friend.
Considering this story could only really be enjoyed by the very young, it is too complicated, with too many unnecessary strands which will get the nippers in a twist.
The action hurts the eyes, and an annoying narration underlines how badly thought-out this Christmas holiday film is. It’s a shame: there are loads of good actors providing the voices, from Matthew Broderick to Dustin Hoffman.
The art department has obviously had a few bob to spend too, but scores poorly against the last film starring rodents, the not-so-hot Ratatouille, which beats this by much more than a whisker. |
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