Despereaux, the most adorable animated mouse since Fievel, won’t cower or scurry — two traits parents, teachers and leaders applaud in Mouseworld.
Three and a half out of five stars
• Voiced by: Matthew Broderick, Dustin Hoffman, Emma Watson, Tracey Ullman, Kevin Kline, William H. Macy and Stanley Tucci
* Rated: G
With big brown eyes and oversized ears, he’s our miniature white knight in “The Tale of Despereaux,” based on the Newbery Medal-winning book by Kate DiCamillo. But since “a hero doesn’t appear until the world really needs one,” as narrator Sigourney Weaver explains, we don’t meet the brave and curious outcast Despereaux until the sun has stopped shining on the Land of Dor.
The cause?
In true fantasy logic, the King banned soup (the pride of Dor), rats, and anyone who harbors the creatures after a seafaring rodent named Roscuro (voiced by Dustin Hoffman) drops into the Queen’s soup on Soup Day and she drops dead.
Chased by the King’s guards, Roscuro lands in Ratworld — a dark labyrinth filled with rickshaws made out of skulls and a gladiator arena where rats cheer for a beastly cat or chant to eat the prisoner themselves.
Though enchanting, “The Tale” starts to sag and may confuse little ones when multiple subplots stop short. Miggery, voice by Tracey Ullman, will remind chubby little girls “every girl wants to be a princess,” but only the thin blondes born into royalty can be.
Gap-toothed, portly, hard-of-hearing and poor, Miggery is sold to attend to the Princess, voiced by Harry Potter’s Emma Watson. Jealousy leads Miggery to kidnap the Princess with help from Roscuro.
Beyond the animation that resembles eye-catching illustrations rather than slick CG work, what’s refreshing about “The Tale” is that it doesn’t pander to adults with tongue-in-cheek jokes or self-mocking attitudes overdone recently in children’s films.
