Valiant Despereaux Doesn’t Get a Storybook Ending
Despereaux Tilling (Matthew Broderick) is too brave to realize he shouldn’t be. Tiny even for a mouse, the youngster doesn’t scurry, isn’t afraid to look down into deep, dark wells and enjoys drawing pictures of cats on his scholastic notebooks. He feels life is meant to be explored, facing ones fears only a small part of that particularly glorious adventure.
Princess Pea (Emma Watson) and Despereaux (Matthew Broderick) meet in Universal Pictures' The Tales of Despereaux
After sneaking into the royal library, Despereaux reads a storybook filled with knights battling dragons and princesses in need of rescuing discovering his true calling. He’s going to follow the code of truth and honor, battling injustice where he finds it no matter what the eventual cost to his own body might end up being.
Next thing the mouse knows he’s joining forces with a culinary rat named Roscuro (Dustin Hoffman) to help save the sad Princess Pea (Emma Watson) from the loneliness of despair brought on by her mother’s tragic death. With his parents (William H. Macy, Francis Conroy) unable to understand, the duo proceeds to ease the pain of past mistakes, save a kingdom from its own despair and open back the heart of a distraught serving girl (Tracey Ullman) unable to distinguish her royal fantasies from her miserly reality.
Based on the award-winning book by author Kate DiCamillo, The Tales of Despereaux is a frustratingly irritating disappointment. While the film’s heart is certainly in the right place, and while certain moments exude honest warmth and refreshingly direct truth, on the whole there is nothing about this computer animated epic that remotely sets it apart from the crowd. It is, in the end, really rather nondescript, little about the picture worth recollecting the moment audiences walk out the door.
Pity, because there is a cute family-friendly saga hidden inside this just aching to busrt out. Despereaux’s point of view is wonderfully endearing. I loved his youthful energy, his directness of character and his almost unwavering honesty even in the face of incredible dangers. When someone tells him, “No one starts out afraid,” it is impossible not to nod your head in agreement, the little mouse’s smile as infectiously euphoric as a rainbow hovering over a grassy playfield on lazy Spring day.
I was also quite awed by some of the animation. The painstaking detail gone into crafting the mice and the world they inhabit absolutely breathtaking. Their fur shimmers brilliantly, the colors going through the entire spectrum as every wisp of air or every fast-paced movement causes it weave to and fro like blades of tall grass in a golden Midwestern plain basking in the sunshine.
Overall, however, this film just doesn’t make the grade. The story never grabs you, the screenplay never achieving the same intoxicating effervescence DiCamillo’s original book managed so beautifully. Worse, it takes forever to get going, almost twenty full minutes transpiring before the main character even makes his first appearance. I kept sitting there waiting for something of note to happen, and even when certain elements got me to smile or illicit a slight chuckle they didn’t last long enough to make a durable impression.
That’s not entirely true. There is a great moment where the animation, storytelling and vocal work all combine to achieve a single five minute stretch of wonderment that forced me to sit up in awe. Despereaux, banished to the depths of Ratworld, meets the blind Hovis (Christopher Lloyd) before making his decent. Reminding me of Mrs. Brisby’s encounter with The Great Owl in The Secret of NIMH, this scene is a fantastic hint as to what might have been, an ethereal encounter capturing my imagination sending me back to that childlike place where fantasy and reality have the wondrous potential to merge.
If only the rest of the picture could even have hinted at a little of the same maybe I’d have something to talk about. As it is, the majority is so routine, so familiar and humdrum, I don’t care how old you are there just isn’t any reason to watch it. While this rodent’s story is worthy of being told, The Tales of Despereaux is not the storybook ending our dashing hero deserves.
Film Rating: êê (out of 4)
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