Tale of Despereaux

Director: Sam Fell and Robert Stevenhagen

Chivalry. Bravery. Honor. Not generally words that come to mind when thinking of a mouse. But Despereaux is no ordinary big-eared mouse. He is a gentleman, or at least that's his standard answer when everyone in the film asks "are you a man or a mouse?" which got a little old after a while.

The "Tale of Despereaux" begins when talking rat Roscuro who, on a voyage to the kingdom of Dor, famous for its soups, accidently falls into the royal soup and kills the queen (how this really happened is left unsaid). In his sadness, the king bans all rats. In doing so he upsets the natural order of life, and a dark cloud is cast over the entire kingdom, narrator Sigourney Weaver explains.
Enter Despereaux (second plot), the unlikely adventurous mouse who is determined to save Princess Pea (third subplot), who is a prisoner in the castle, though the reason for this is unclear as well. The fourth plotline involves Miggery Sow, a bitter handmaiden who grew up on a pig farm and dreams of being a princess.

Now if you can keep these subplots straight for the first hour of the movie then you're better than I am at watching children's movies. After a while you see how it's all intertwined and it gets a bit better, but not by much.

This film is a case of too much good stuff packed into a short hour-and-a-half. Combined, the four stories taken from the children's book of the same title, result in a less than tasty concoction of confusion, disbelief and slight boredom.

Now don't get me wrong, I enjoy a well done animated children's film and this one does have some good features, namely the voice and digital animation quality was superb.
The story isn't really centered around a particular character, despite what the title may suggest.
The movie features the voice talents of a motley crew of actors, including Emma Watson (of Harry Potter fame), Dustin Hoffman and Matthew Broderick.
Somewhat strangely though the boy mouse is voiced by a 50-year-old man, but who am I to judge the voice talent of a mouse.

Overall this is one of those movies where you wait for something to happen and it just doesn't. It seems like there is about half an hour of intro and then suddenly the action happens leaving you wondering how it got there. Meantime, before you can comprehend the situation, the film moves on to another subplot. 

It does have some good morals though, and also promotes reading and imagination to its young audience.
However, there aren't really any funny bits like there are in similar movies like "Ratatouille" or "Shrek," but it could be good for a rainy day rental.
The film didn't really make me want to go out and change the world, but it did have me craving a bowl of soup.


Now showing in Latvia and Lithuania.