Overall Rating: C
Artistic/Filmmaking: A-
Storytelling: D-
MPAA Rating: PG
Overview
An unbelievably well-animated story that is a apparently a “classic” among people who are not my family, The Tale Of Desperaux attempts to throw approximately three stories and maybe 15 or so independent story components to the wall to see what sticks. The kids will like it (Your Movie Monkey’s daughters did), but, as with Eragon, adults will feel that they’ve seen this all before. (And, unlike Eragon, the parts you’ve seen before will not always have come from the highest quality of movies.)
Kid Review
Drama (Your Movie Monkey’s 9-year-old daughter) rated this movie an A- and had this to say: The Tale of Despereaux started out as a good story. But then, it just gets really complicated. The other thing about The Tale of Despereaux that I didn’t care for was that there were a lot of weird things that turned up; i.e., a talking and walking man made out of fruits and vegetables. But there were a lot of good things about this movie, too. It was basically a lot of interesting stories, and they are connected in some way or another, and blended into one story.
Queen (Your Movie Monkey’s 7-year-old daughter) rated this movie an A+, and declined further comment.
Full Review
Your Movie Monkey was a little worried about this movie, for the sheer fact that in the previews, a princess is shown talking to a mouse, and says something like “you’re a strange little mouse”, and the mouse says “thank you”. It’s the kind of self-referential nonsense Your Movie Monkey finds irritating. In Your Movie Monkey’s high school, there was a girl who prided herself on being “different”, not one of the crowd, a rugged individual. The problem was, she was constantly pointing out how different she was being, which made it, somehow, forced. IYMMHO, a rugged individual is one who does there own thing just because they like it, not because they need attention from it. Anyway, the mouse saying “thank you” to being described as strange felt very much like something Robin Williams would say in one of his moister on-screen moments.
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