Desperaux is a poorly conceived film, or, more to the point, three poorly conceived films rolled into one. Much too ambitious/confusing.
First movie, a happy kingdom is about to celebrate their wondrous Soup Day. Among the happy throngs ready to eat are a sailor and his happy rat, Roscuro. Roscuro is so enthralled by the amazing soup that he sneaks into the castle for a closer glimpse and falls into the bowl from which none other than the queen herself is eating. This causes her to faint into her soup and suffer a quiet unnoticed death (No one thought the queen may need to breathe through all that soup?), so that her husband will become a near-catatonic depressive who spends his days in semi-darkness plucking away lachrymose tunes on a lute that sound like funeral music composed by Jethro Tull. He also bans rats and soup. Which drives away curiously, both the sun and rain.
Next movie, Desperaux is born in an unused castle room-village of neurotic mice who seem as though they are all candidates for the Dr. Phil hall of fame. Desperaux is an adventurous mouse, which I suppose makes him a republican in a Hollywood allegorical, and this goes against the grain of angst that permeates his community and he therefore is eventually banished to the dungeons, where the rats, who have their colony in the darkness, will certainly eat him. Guess which rat outcast saves him.
In the last of the three movies an angry dungeonkeepr yells at the comely wench who serves the princess. This servant girl, Miggery, has delusions of being the princess that manifest physically and is so anthropomorphic in reverse that any pigs watching the film would surely gasp, "Golly, it's scary how swine-like they made her." Then there's gladiatorial combat amongst the freaky looking rats, the princess is kidnapped and almost eaten by thousands of evil-looking rats, the mouse saves the kingdom and brings rain (see The Rainmaker, Dune, The Day After Tomorrow, et cetera). He also brings back the sun. And the soup. And we must assume, world peace and reduced carbon emissions.
The whole thing is so convoluted, the characters, especially the dungeonkeeper and the maid, oh and the lugubrious king, and the rat who caused all the problems then tried to kill the princess then had a life-altering moment (apparently he got access to some of the mice's Dr. Phil literature) are hard to care for, there is no emotional charge other than "Jeez, those are nasty rats", which are much too scary for little children, there's a ridiculous Quixotic-kamikaze man whose body is entirely vegetative (I suppose it would be difficult to have a Quixotic-kamikaze man whose body is entirely vegetative not be ridiculous), there is no humor other than laughing at Desperaux's ears (one is left pining for the "wit" of Shrek's bodily evacuations) and it is way too violent to be a kids' movie which it was marketed as. The whole movie comes across like the king, cleverly drawn but emotionally barren.
First movie, a happy kingdom is about to celebrate their wondrous Soup Day. Among the happy throngs ready to eat are a sailor and his happy rat, Roscuro. Roscuro is so enthralled by the amazing soup that he sneaks into the castle for a closer glimpse and falls into the bowl from which none other than the queen herself is eating. This causes her to faint into her soup and suffer a quiet unnoticed death (No one thought the queen may need to breathe through all that soup?), so that her husband will become a near-catatonic depressive who spends his days in semi-darkness plucking away lachrymose tunes on a lute that sound like funeral music composed by Jethro Tull. He also bans rats and soup. Which drives away curiously, both the sun and rain.
Next movie, Desperaux is born in an unused castle room-village of neurotic mice who seem as though they are all candidates for the Dr. Phil hall of fame. Desperaux is an adventurous mouse, which I suppose makes him a republican in a Hollywood allegorical, and this goes against the grain of angst that permeates his community and he therefore is eventually banished to the dungeons, where the rats, who have their colony in the darkness, will certainly eat him. Guess which rat outcast saves him.
In the last of the three movies an angry dungeonkeepr yells at the comely wench who serves the princess. This servant girl, Miggery, has delusions of being the princess that manifest physically and is so anthropomorphic in reverse that any pigs watching the film would surely gasp, "Golly, it's scary how swine-like they made her." Then there's gladiatorial combat amongst the freaky looking rats, the princess is kidnapped and almost eaten by thousands of evil-looking rats, the mouse saves the kingdom and brings rain (see The Rainmaker, Dune, The Day After Tomorrow, et cetera). He also brings back the sun. And the soup. And we must assume, world peace and reduced carbon emissions.
The whole thing is so convoluted, the characters, especially the dungeonkeeper and the maid, oh and the lugubrious king, and the rat who caused all the problems then tried to kill the princess then had a life-altering moment (apparently he got access to some of the mice's Dr. Phil literature) are hard to care for, there is no emotional charge other than "Jeez, those are nasty rats", which are much too scary for little children, there's a ridiculous Quixotic-kamikaze man whose body is entirely vegetative (I suppose it would be difficult to have a Quixotic-kamikaze man whose body is entirely vegetative not be ridiculous), there is no humor other than laughing at Desperaux's ears (one is left pining for the "wit" of Shrek's bodily evacuations) and it is way too violent to be a kids' movie which it was marketed as. The whole movie comes across like the king, cleverly drawn but emotionally barren.