The Tale of Despereaux, this animated adventure opening today, features a mouse that (surprise) is a little bit different than other mice. It starts out well enough. We’re welcomed to the land of Dor, a proper fairytale kingdom with a king, a queen, a princess and a Seinfeld-esque devotion to good soup. Unfortunately, after a freak accident involving said soup and a rat, sadness descends on the kingdom. The king banishes all rats to live in the dark underground and outlaws soup.
Enter Despereaux, a large-eared, courageous little mouse. Despereaux’s lack of normal fears and his love of chivalry get him banished from the quaint, orderly Mouse world. He is sent to Rat World, which is rather like medieval Venice over-taken by a roving band of criminals. Through a series of events involving another rat, a servant girl, and a character who is inexplicably made out of vegetables, Despereaux sets out to save the princess and bring happiness and soup back to Dor.
The film offers some good lessons about following your own path, over-coming your fears, and forgiving others. Despereaux himself, with his floppy ears and adventurous spirit, is quite lovable. I also enjoyed the quirky touches and beautiful animation, but I wish that the story had strayed further from the fairytale formula. The princess is blond, beautiful, and helpless, while the servants are fat, ugly, and of questionable intelligence.
At certain points the movie also seems to be taking a stance against prejudice, with the rats serving as the victims of discrimination and fear-mongering. The narrator offers such lines as, “What if your name - John, or Beth, or Sam - was an insult? How would that make you feel about yourself?” Unfortunately, the movie also portrays the rats as a group of bloodthirsty, bottom feeders led by an evil dictator. The civil rights message gets a bit muddled.
At only 85 minutes, Despereaux is fairly short and it’s certainly not the worst children’s movie out there. You might be better off, however, checking out the Newberry-winning novel by Kate DiCamillo instead. - Lindsay Armstrong
Still trying to decide whether or not to see it? Watch the trailer
here.
