The Tale of Despereaux (2008)

Waste of time

Thanks for the memories!

Purely Joyful Movie!

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

In the 4th grade we had to read the book this movie was based off of. It was pretty good. I'd highly recommend reading it. We then had to watch the movie. It was pretty bad. It wasn't terrible or incompetent, it was just kinda boring. Nothing was executed very well. The story veered off from the book and just became kinda dumb. The animation wasn't very good and I was bored. From what I can tell, I'm not the only kid who was bored watching this movie. There are plenty of other movies that you could be showing your kid - like Ratatoing - that are better than that movie. (To anyone who has heard of that movie, I hope you know that I am joking. Parents, show your kids Ratatouille because its adorable and well written. In no circumstances should you support the people who made Ratatoing.)

the atmosphere . that is its basic virtue. and the root of return in the memories of simple fairy tales about ordinary people who becomes heroes. the slices from Don Quijote is another good point who does The Tale of Despereaux an inspired choice for entire family. the different characters, the courage and romanticism, the fight for noble ideal, the drops from Nutcracker, the flavor of adapted book and a rare form of elegance of image. maybe not remarkable. but beautiful and useful for a story about small virtues who transforms the life. and that does it special and one of animations who impress for its modest rediscover of old fashion stories about knights and princess and different child.

I truly enjoyed this movie although I do have to agree with some posters and their question of ratings. Personally I didn't find anything terrible about it and would allow my 8 or 9 year old to watch, possibly 7 if I felt they where able to handle it. I grew up watching the visually amazing cinematic accomplishments like Dark Crystal, Labyrinth, Watership Down (that one was horrible for a child), and The Secret of Nimh, while I never found those scary (except Watership) I can imagine some parents wouldn't want their young ones to watch them either.From a story stand point, The Tale of Despereaux is lovely; the animation is quite stunning with the colors running more towards the dark then the light (since the sun went away). It's a fairly classic tale, brave mouse gets ostracized for being brave (different) and banished to be eaten by the rats. One rat takes him in and they become friends. All through out there are different characters with their own personal stories emerging which all in all I found well done. The cast was amazing with some well known actors lending their voices, while personally I didn't like Matthew Brodericks voice as Despereaux, I still think he did a fine job of it. I think it's a movie worth watching for adults and older children, but I would think a PG rating would be better suited.

The qualities: - Superb graphics, expressive, beautiful and stylish; - Solid characters, both intrinsically and visually; - A compelling atmosphere, and mood in general.The flaws: - A chaotic script, confusing and unprofessional. They were too ambitious to keep as much as possible of the novel's sub-plots and secondary characters, but didn't know how to organize them according to the screen-writing rules.A linear direction: everything flows on too uniformly, the important scenes are not accented and developed enough. As such, it gradually becomes boring, and during the culminating moments it's positively anticlimactic.The disadvantageous comparison with "Oblio". That one had spark! This one is also smart, but less inspired.