Convoluted 'Despereaux' just another rodent flick
Feet propped on the coffee table watching TV, my husband and I stumbled across the trailer for "The Tale of Despereaux" the other day.
"Why do they keep making movies about French mice?" he asked with disgust.
I didn't correct him that "Ratatouille" was actually about French rats, but mostly I didn't argue because it was a good question.
Why do they keep making movies -- and books and cartoons -- about mice?
Obviously, mice are cute, but they're also helpless and fragile -- a lot like kids. And using animal heroes opens up possibilities for another popular theme: alienation.
Whether it's a fish, a lion or a rat, the hero is often profoundly different from the "normal" characters around him.
The same goes for Despereaux, a mouse who can't behave at all mouse-like.
He's not afraid of cats or knives or dark pits, and he's fascinated with fairy tales and dreams of rescuing a princess.
Obviously, this doesn't sit well in Mouseworld, itself a part of the kingdom of Dor, where mousy-ness is a highly valued skill.
And though Despereaux ostensibly leads the movie, he's just one of a confusing overabundance of characters.
There are Italian cooks made from vegetables and homely pig-slop girls. There are princesses and dungeon wardens and pirate rats and mouse fathers in Pilgrim garb.
If anything, "Despereaux" suffers from too much of a good thing: too much plot, too many characters and too many "worlds" within the world of Dor.
More than once I thought the real hero of the movie was soup. Yes, you read right, soup. We certainly hear enough about it. Soup is so important in Dor that when the citizens stop making it, the heavens literally refuse to produce rain.
There also came an uncomfortable moment when it seemed the evil Ratworld - with snake-charmer music and heavily accented rats in fez-type hats - was just an offensive Middle Eastern stereotype.
Based on a children's book of the same name, "Despereaux" calls itself a fairy tale.
But the most successful fairy tales boast simple themes: A prince quests to rescue a princess, a man transformed into a beast looks for the way to undo the spell.
And though watchable, "Despereaux" never reaches magical levels because it fails to capture the simplicity of the greatest fairy tales.
"Despereaux" should have dropped some of the book's elements and accepted an improved film as the trade-off.
The truly despereaux for kiddie fare won't go away angry but neither will the story stay with them after the closing credits roll.
"Tale of Despereaux"
Rating: 2 stars
Starring: Matthew Broderick, Dustin Hoffman, Emma Watson, Tracey Ullman, Kevin Kline
Directed by: Sam Fell, Robert Stevenhagen
A Universal Pictures release. Rated G. 94 minutes.