The Tale of Despereaux
If you saw the preview for this movie and thought, "Aw, look. An adorable little mouse with huge ears!" then perhaps you will enjoy this movie.
But maybe you saw the preview and thought, "Aw, look. A fun little adventure story with a cute mouse hero!"
Leave it. Look away. Go watch "Wall-E" for the eighth time instead.
The mouse is an utterly boring, flat character. And he's not even that cute.
All the humans are animated to be distractingly ugly, distorted, or just plain weird.
Various characters do despicable things for the stupidest reasons imaginable. Some characters disappear from the plot as if they were never important; others get elaborate backstories for no narrative reason. Ugly characters do ugly things; pretty characters do nice things.
And the whole time, Sigourney Weaver narrates. Or, rather, Sigourney Weaver lends her lovely voice to a series of shallow, specious moral anvils.
The only thing I liked - not even kidding here, the only thing - was Dustin Hoffman's voice. It's deep and warm and lends far more sympathy to his character than the writing deserves. Go Dustin Hoffman.
Shut up, Despereaux.
But maybe you saw the preview and thought, "Aw, look. A fun little adventure story with a cute mouse hero!"
Leave it. Look away. Go watch "Wall-E" for the eighth time instead.
The mouse is an utterly boring, flat character. And he's not even that cute.
All the humans are animated to be distractingly ugly, distorted, or just plain weird.
Various characters do despicable things for the stupidest reasons imaginable. Some characters disappear from the plot as if they were never important; others get elaborate backstories for no narrative reason. Ugly characters do ugly things; pretty characters do nice things.
And the whole time, Sigourney Weaver narrates. Or, rather, Sigourney Weaver lends her lovely voice to a series of shallow, specious moral anvils.
The only thing I liked - not even kidding here, the only thing - was Dustin Hoffman's voice. It's deep and warm and lends far more sympathy to his character than the writing deserves. Go Dustin Hoffman.
Shut up, Despereaux.