Published: April 14, 2009 01:18 pm      

'Despereaux' a tale with heart

Universal released “The Tale of Despereaux” to video rental and retail outlets April 7. The film is entertaining, down to earth, heart—warming and funny. In other words, good story, good teachings, good film. Go buy it.

“The Tale of Despereaux” is a DVD worth watching, especially withe kids. I reviewed the Blu—Ray release.

This release has a lot of heart.

It’s a story about courage, about being okay with being different and about seeing beyond how others want you to be.

I watched this with my 6-soon-to-be-7-year-old granddaughter. We both loved it.

“The Tale of Despereaux” is a multi-level experience.

The film portrays curious little world of Rat World, a world of water canals, bridges and rats.

Then there is Mouse World, a bed-time story setting of a cozy village somewhere, that gets all shaken up when a large-eared mouse with a big heart named Despereaux takes delight in the world about him and doesn’t see things or play his life out according to “how a mouse should be.”

More than one character tells him, “you’re such a strange little mouse.”

Then there the human level. Including the relatively boring life at the castle played out among the commoners that work there.

This is one of those modern fairy tales that portrays the downside of being a princess, trapped and isolated in a castle, restrained by royal rules. The Tale of Despereaux has the flavor of an honest—to—goodness fairy tale. Like the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm or Hans Christian Anderson, the release credits small children with being able to handle thematic darkness — and it serves up plenty.

The story contains a genuine sense of danger, providing depth and texture to the moral lessons all fairy tales contain. Despereaux's heroism is all the more real because he's unflappable despite being expelled from his own community.

“The Tale of Despereaux” is a modern day “Jonathan Livingston Seagull.” Desperaux goes beyond “the mouse ways,” which initially, gets him in trouble.

The story serves to reminds the viewers that the heart can become hardened and twisted because it has been hurt. The heart can go down to the dungeon, but the heart can also forgive and heal. And in the end, good can overcome evil and tolerance can overcome intolerance. Even if the viewer is not in to all the symbolic or emotional stuff it’s still a good movie to watch.

Voice cast: Matthew Broderick, Dustin Hoffman, Emma Watson, Tracey Ullman, Kevin Kline, William H. Macy, Stanley Tucci, Robbie Coltrane, Tony Hale, Frank Langella, Richard Jenkins and Christopher Lloyd

The Tale of Despereaux

Rating: (*** 1/2 out of *****)

Synopsis: (Courtesy of Universal Pictures) The Tale of Despereaux film begins once upon a time in the faraway kingdom of Dor, where there was magic in the air, laughter aplenty, and gallons of mouthwatering soup. But an accident left the King broken-hearted, the Princess filled with longing, and the townsfolk without their soup. Sunlight disappeared. The world became gray. All hope was lost in this land . . . until Despereaux Tilling was born.

The Tale of Despereaux film is a modern fairy tale from visionary filmmaker Gary Ross, together with directors Sam Fell and Rob Stevenhagen. It tells the story of several unlikely heroes: Despereaux (Matthew Broderick), a brave mouse banished to the dungeon for speaking with a human; Roscuro (Dustin Hoffman), a good-hearted rat who loves light and soup, but is exiled to darkness; Pea (Emma Watson), a Princess in a gloomy castle who is prisoner to her father’s grief; and Mig (Tracey Ullman), a servant girl who longs to be a Princess, but is forced to serve the jailer (Robbie Coltrane).

The Tale of Despereaux film centers on Despereaux, tiny and graced with oversized ears, who was born too big for his little world. Refusing to live his life cowering, he befriends a Princess named Pea and learns to read (rather than eat) books — revelling in stories of knights, dragons, and fair maidens. In the Tale of Despereaux film, Despereaux has been banished from Mouseworld for being more man than mouse, but he is rescued by another outcast, Roscuro, who also wants to hear the tales. But when the Princess dismisses Roscuros friendship, he becomes the ultimate rat and plots revenge with fellow outsider Mig.

After Pea is kidnapped in the Tale of Despereaux film, Despereaux discovers he is the only one who can rescue her and that even the tiniest mouse can find the courage of a knight in shining armor. In this tale of bravery, forgiveness, and redemption, one small creature will teach a kingdom that it takes only a little light to show the truth: what you look like doesn’t equal what you are.

Special Features

• U—Control — Picture-in-Picture: Allows you to augment the feature with scene-specific animatics and live action production footage.

• The Tale of Despereaux — The (Mostly) Non—Fictional Making of the Movie (HD — 11:41): An electronic press kit featuring The Tale of Despereaux author Kate DiCamillo, producers Gary Ross and Allison Thomas, directors Sam Fell and Rob Stevenhagen, Emma Watson, Matthew Broderick, and others. Most interesting, the featurette shows how, in stark contrast to most animated features, the actors were recorded together so that they could play off of each other's performances.

• Scene Progressions (HD — 35:08): A collection of six scenes followed through the script, storyboard, layout, animation, and final lighting phases of the production.

• Top Ten Uses for Oversized Ears (HD — 1:20): A silly, but kid-friendly top ten list.

• 2 new Deleted Songs (HD — 4:36): "It's Great to Be a Rat" and "Soup"—that were removed from the movie, making it a non-musical. The songs are accompanied by animated storyboards of the scenes in which they would have appeared.

• Make Your Own Soup Game (HD): A sort of weird remote control-based game that allows kids to choose two spices from a selection of five. The game then tells them what kind of soup they've made.

• Card Creator (HD): Another remote-based game in which kids select backgrounds, character poses, borders, and quotations from the film in order to make a greeting card. Cards can be saved and, provided one's Blu-ray player is BD-Live compatible, emailed to friends.

• Curious George 2: Follow That Monkey! Promo (HD — 10 min): This 10-minute preview of the upcoming theatrical feature looks more like a movie adaptation of the PBS television series than a sequel to the Will Ferrell flick.

• BD—Live enabled