Ralph's Movie Reviews: THE TALE OF DESPEREAUX

Wednesday, December 24, 2008

THE TALE OF DESPEREAUX

Animated action\adventure

PRINCIPAL VOICES
Dustin Hoffman: Roscuro the rat
Kevin Kline: the royal chef André
Matthew Broderick: Despereaux, a cute little mouse
Tracey Ullman: Miggery Sow, a poor orphaned farm girl
Emma Watson: Princess Pea
Sigourney Weaver: the Narrator

REVIEW
Despereaux conveys some very important social values; that it’s not just appearances that are important, one should be courageous and able to forgive. But that is not enough to outweigh the overall tone of despair and doom. Assuming of course the kids can figure it all out as the story is fairly complicated what with the two different worlds with nice guys among the not-so-nice guys and visa versa.

One other thing: the official classification is G but that gives no indication of what’s in the movie. The one I’ve assigned is more appropriate and consistent with other movies of this type. In all likelihood parents of young ones (4 and 5-year olds) might not want to expose their children to these things. And also save themselves a lot of explaining afterwards.

CLASSIFICATION

for some mild action and peril, the sudden death of someone, two startlingly scary instances, (one of a skull and another a mean-looking cat) and the expressed desire of some rats wanting to eat the lovely princess.

P.S.
Perhaps it’s my imagination (or lousy memory?) but Miggery looks very much like Shrek’s wife Princess Fiona. Coincidence? I think not.

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my ratings system

I've always thought that telling too much about a movie or warning someone about a "twist" at the end deprives the person the pleasure of seeing it as it unfolds, so I don’t do it. You may not always agree with my rating of course, but at least it is an unbiased opinion unlike some of the full time professional reviewers who are on the studio’s payroll.

A few movies you won’t see any review from me:

Scary movies: I’m the world’s biggest chicken and just hate getting the crap scared out of me. I can handle an unexpected door slam, that kind of thing, but a movie that keeps you on the edge of your seat…not for me. Sorry.
Movies geared to the young teen and pre-teen crowd with dialog comprising mostly of crude remarks, awful jokes and lots of rude, socially unacceptable body noises. "The Spy that Shagged Me" comes to mind. (I wonder if the kids know what the British verb to shag someone really means? They probably do; I bet you it’s the parents who haven’t a clue).
Sometimes Hollywood gets on a roll and they produce a series of movies that are all very much alike. For example movies about the CIA were very popular and so we had The Bourne Identity and Bad Company and The Sum of All Fears. They all had the same basic theme and it becomes repetitive. I will see some, but not all of them.

FYI this is my rating system:

0 stars = Terrible: so bad it’s not worth talking about; in fact, I’d pay you not to go
= Lousy: I actually got up and walked out before the end it was just that bad (no kidding)
= Not so good: thought about walking out but hung in just in case it got better (but it didn’t)
= A so-so good movie: I enjoyed it somewhat but wasn’t all that crazy about it
= A really good movie: I recommend seeing it
= An excellent movie you just got to see! I suggest you put it on your "To Do List" it’s that good.

some favourite websites

For those into it, Nitpickers at

has more movie mistakes than you could ever imagine. My contributions can be seen if you check out the Nitpickers Registry and click on the link Nitpickers Listed by Nitpicker Number, select the group 45,401 - 45,500 and drill down to number 45411. Although I have 56 nitpicks to my credit, some have almost 2,000. You wonder sometimes where they find the time to do it.