Friday, December 19, 2008

Movie review: The Tale of Despereaux

By Alex Bentley

Packing the cast of an animated film with a laundry list of big name actors has always been a curiosity for this critic. Exactly who, besides the studio heads, cares that these particular celebrities are lending their voices to the proceedings? Certainly not the kids, who are just there to see the fun and crazy antics of the characters, and wouldn't know most movie stars if they were standing right in front of them. And almost surely not the majority of the adults, who most likely just want a 90-minute diversion for their kids.

Despite this, The Tale of Despereaux goes whole hog on above-the-title talent (take a deep breath): Matthew Broderick, Dustin Hoffman, Emma Watson (Hermione from the Harry Potter films), Tracey Ullman, Kevin Kline, William H. Macy, Stanley Tucci, Frank Langella, Richard Jenkins, Christopher Lloyd, and Sigourney Weaver. And that's not including other slightly-less-known actors such as Ciarán Hinds, Tony Hale (Buster from Arrested Development), Frances Conroy, and Bronson Pinchot. Breaking with usual animated film tradition, all of the actors' names are proclaimed boldly before the film even begins, which begs the question yet again – who cares?

The decision is even more puzzling because only three of the actors are recognizable in their roles: Broderick as the titular mouse Despereaux, Hoffman as Roscuro, a rat, and Watson as Princess Pea, a figure who weaves her way through all of the film's plots. That's right, The Tale of Despereaux is actually a misnomer because he has to share his tale with two other side-stories. In fact, we don't actually meet Despereaux until about 10 minutes into the film, following an elaborate introduction about the Kingdom of Dor and how Roscuro ruined their yearly soup feast tradition by unceremoniously appearing in the bowl of the queen.

My, what big ears you have.

By the time Despereaux finally makes his first appearance, one could be forgiven in thinking that he's not actually the focus of the film. Besides the plight of Roscuro, who's sent to live in the subterranean Ratworld following his soup debacle, we see the heartbreak of Princess Pea and her father following the death of the queen, and also the building anger of Miggery Sow (Ullman), who toils as a servant for Princess Pea while hungering to replace her in the castle towers.

The cute conceit of Despereaux is that he's a mouse with enormous ears who doesn't live by normal mouse standards; he doesn't cower in the face of danger and has a nasty but impressive habit of grabbing the cheese off mousetraps just before the metal snaps shut. What's striking, however, is how much fun is not being had in the film. Showing Despereaux in action, saving the day, would seem to be right up the alley of any good animated film, yet none of the sequences have the pizazz required to entrance children, much less adults.

Not helping matters is the fact that the film repeatedly goes back and forth between all of the stories, in the process giving all of them short shrift. Perhaps this is exactly the way it transpired in the book on which the movie is based, but something that works in book form does not always work on the big screen. Concessions should have been made; a movie called The Tale of Despereaux should feel like it's the tale of Despereaux, not Despereaux and a bunch of characters around him.

The three main characters are all astonished that they've made such a dull film.

Not much can be said about the animation – the style appears to have been copied directly from the book (with a few computer-generated nods, of course), which should please fans of the book but doesn't do much in comparison with other recent animated films. As noted above, none of the so-called big name actors make much of an impact, and even when they do, as in Hoffman's case, it only serves to remind us, “Hey, that's Dustin Hoffman!” That's never good when trying to get whisked away into the fantasyland of animation.

The Tale of Despereaux is a fairy tale that's in desperate need of some old school humor and charm. Even bad animated films have the occasional entertaining moment. When an animated film is boring, as this one most definitely is, that's a whole different kind of low. Despereaux, sir, you are no Mickey Mouse.

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