#140RVW
Very good-looking animated film. Somewhat overstocked in the celebrity voice department, but not to ruin. Good if not overly original story.
What’s more:
There’s a sort of embarrassment of riches in the animated movie world, and that makes it hard to stand out. Even when the movies are well-made, even if they’re based on great source material, there tends to be a remarkable sameness to many of them.
Take Desperaux; comes with a built-in audience of readers of author Kate DiCamillo’s Newbery Medal winning book, not to mention people who like cute mice. Toss in a dozen or more celebrity voices and what do you get? Sorta the same movie you’ve seen a few times by now.
Is this a bad thing? Maybe not. There will always be more children so there should always be more children’s movies. They can’t all be groundbreaking.
The worst thing is that I enjoyed watching this. I felt good after watching it. But the more I reflected on it, the less that stayed with me. Even while watching it the feelings of familiarity were creeping in, but the movie is well-made and I let it pass.
Maybe I’m being harder on it in the light of day than I was immediately after watching it. I’ve just sort of had it with the same old animation and the same celebrity voice-overs. Even as this film shows some unique and lovely design features, they manage to make the characters look like those in virtually every other film. Look at the cook; he could have walked out of 10 other movies this year.
You have a great story – try a little harder.
Poster:
Trailer:
Bechdel Test:
Pass, barely.
| Main Cast | Matthew Broderick Despereaux (voice), Emma Watson Princess Pea (voice), Dustin Hoffman Roscuro (voice), Tracey Ullman Miggery Sow (voice) |
| Rating | G |
| Release Date | Fri 19 Dec 2008 UTC |
| Director | Sam Fell, Robert Stevenhagen |
| Genres | Adventure, Animation, Comedy, Family, Fantasy |
| Plot | The tale of three unlikely heroes – a misfit mouse who prefers reading books to eating them, an unhappy rat who schemes to leave the darkness of the dungeon, and a bumbling servant girl with cauliflower ears – whose fates are intertwined with that of the castle’s princess. |
| Poster |  |
| Runtime | 93 |
| Tagline | Small Hero. Big Heart. |
| Writers | Gary Ross (writer), Will McRobb (screen story) |
| Year | 2008 |