The Tale of Despereaux (2008)

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.

Before watching the movie, I read the book. The book was awesome; very well-written, engaging, and fulfilling. The movie follows the book's plot, for the most part. However, the illustrations/animation of the movie are really bad. The mice are adorable; but the human faces are very ugly. I got an eerie feeling watching this movie, just due to the way the humans were animated. Their faces were way too elongated and they just scared me. An unfortunate situation where a great story is ruined by the ugly animations.Aside from the animations, this movie did not turn out to be very engaging. It seems to be very dull and boring, for the most part. I did not mind the dark themes of the movie and violence, because that is just part of the story. These themes actually enhance the movie. The lessons learnt are very good, but it is not that fun to watch. Maybe little kids will like it more than older ones.

"The Tale of Despereaux" was a cute, little film, which tries to evoke the same feeling of several old fairy tales and classic animated movies. However, despite the good intentions, this movie had several flaws and annoying aspects that made it very much less enjoyable, and while this film could have been great, it ends being just okay.The best aspect of this film it's the animation, with a great atmosphere and cute and appealing designs. (The sequence where Desperaux reads a fairy tale about knights and dragons is particularly beautiful and well made, and for me, it was the best part of the movie) The voice acting is correct, without being particularly memorable. Personally, I think it was a mistake to cast Matthew Broderick as Desperaux. I don't have anything against that actor, but his voice doesn't fit with the character. Also, the narration made by Sigourney Weaver is incredibly annoying and preachy (And completely unnecessary, since all the scenes and the message from this movie are quite clear and easy to understand) That narration just get worse and worse while the movie advances, to the point of being distracted.The story, without being incredibly original, starts very well, but while it advances, it turns somewhat rushed, having some plot holes, and unconvincing twists (And to get it worse, the annoying narrator doesn't even bother make a good explanation about those aspects of the story, telling the most obvious things and reminding the viewers the message of the movie instead) Some of the characters that at first seem like they are going to have a relevant role in the story are quickly forgotten and never mentioned again (Such as weird guy made out of fruits and vegetables) Anyway, despite those flaws, this movie was funny to watch and had some good scenes and an excellent animation. Personally, I would recommend this film to all the viewers who love the classic animated movies based on fairy-tales, though I think that this movie could be a little "dark" and heavy handed for the little kids (Well, at least compared with the most recent CGI animated films which are more focused in the comedy)

I just saw this movie again, and stand by my original assessment of it. It's an underrated classic, with far more depth than most family movies. On the one hand it's more simplistic than, say, a Pixar film. It's more of a fairy tale like The Little Prince. And while I don't care for the character designs too much (though they do have an artistic charm to them), from a writing standpoint I would put Despereaux on par with the best Pixar films, maybe more so.Most of the main characters are seriously damaged, yet believably human (even the rodents). The way some characters fall from grace is more believable than anything Lucas came up with in Star Wars III.If it has a failing it's with some of the secondary characters, such as the Soup Maker's assistant (made up of vegetables) which just didn't really seem necessary.But the themes of anger, regret, sadness, depression, and the power of forgiveness makes this a movie I feel more children should be exposed to. It's a very much a children's movie, but deals very much with adult themes.