Review: ‘The Tale of Despereaux’

Jeremy:

Halfway through the opening credits for ‘The Tale of Despereaux’, you start to feel like you’re watching a list of presenters at an awards show. Sixteen notable actors and actresses have their names splashed across the screen before the story even begins. That’s what happens when you take a 272-page book and translate it into a 90-minute, animated film. You get a bit of overkill, but you don’t get fully fleshed-out characters. Don’t take that for less-is-more. Not exactly an aspect that defines animated films, but less-is-more would have served ‘The Tale of Despereaux’ significantly. What we get is a pretty standard but saccharine sweet fairy tale filled with so many characters it will be amazing if your children can keep them all separated in their heads.

The fairly simple story of a miniscule mouse who isn’t afraid of human and strikes up a relationship with a fair princess would have made for a pleasant story on its own. However, what ‘The Tale of Despereaux’ does is take that as its central point and builds secondary storylines on top of it. There’s a pirate who is friends with a rat. There’s a kingdom where everyone in it only eats soup. There’s a bustling chef who gets his best ideas from some kind of vegetable elemental. There’s a homely serving-maid to the princess who dreams about one day becoming a princess herself. All of these ancillary storylines converge throughout the film, but none of them really get their own time to become anything.

What really does work in ‘The Tale of Despereaux’ is the dichotomy between the world of the mice and the world of the rats. These are fully created worlds that are as similar as they are different. The mice are trained in school to fear cats and carving knives. The rats have a Rome-like coliseum where wandering mice are taken and fed to a shackled cat. These scenes that go over these two worlds are some of the more interesting in the film. It’s when the pesky humans get in the way that the film’s intrigue really tapers off.

‘The Tale of Despereaux’ tries so hard to emit sweetness. Oftentimes the film’s sugariness goes right past the cuteness and directly to the bitter aftertaste. The character of Despereaux is cute, but, like most everything else with the film, it goes into overkill very quickly. The least cynical moviegoers will get bored very quickly with how saccharine everything gets.

The animation in the film is decent enough. Not being a PIXAR or even a Dreamworks animated film, this is a major plus. Universal isn’t going to become a third powerhouse when it comes to animated films, but ‘The Tale of Despereaux’ has some pretty impressive computer animation.

In the ocean of noteworthy actors who lend their voices, only a few are really necessary. Matthew Broderick’s lighthearted voice works well for the titular character. Emma Watson is pretty replaceable as the princess. Dustin Hoffman and Ciaran Hinds provide good voices to the rats they play, Hinds’ character being the antagonist of the film. The actor gives the character a rather generic, English voice for villainy, but it fits well. Sigourney Weaver’s voice comes in and out of the picture as the narrator. Though her voice is pleasant, the narrator of the film really provides nothing to move the story along. In fact, the narrator here generally offers up more overkill in the film explaining things that really don’t need to be explained.

The film, as a whole, seems to be playing to the tiny tots whose parents will take them. If you’re over the age of six, ‘The Tale of Despereaux’ may just become a boring, animated film that goes nowhere fast. Unfortunately, children who are at that age where they get bored easily may also become restless long before the film is over. It could be my cold, cold heart just picking on a film that is trying to be charming, but even the children at the screening I was at didn’t seem to want to sit still throughout the film’s entirety. This is one case, I think it’s safe to say, where the story ‘The Tale of Despereaux’ tells should probably be read to children, preferably one chapter a night.

[Overall: 2.25 stars out of 5]