The Amazing Maurice (PG, 93 minutes)
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
3 stars
Self-aware humour in kids' movies is hardly uncommon, but this adaptation of Terry Pratchett's book The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents does it a bit differently. The main screenwriter is Terry Rossio, whose previous films include the animated Aladdin and Shrek. But rather than throw out heaps of pop-culture references, this film is playful on a more literary level. Some of the material might go over some kids' heads, but there's more enough here to keep them - and their adult companions - engaged. And it's the kind of film that can be rewatched when older with greater understanding.
There's a framing device, helpfully noted by narrator Malicia (Emilia Clarke from Game of Thrones), who also points out such devices as foreshadowing as the story unfolds.
The story, set in one of those olde Europe fairytale worlds is a riff on the tale of the Pied Piper of Hamelin. Conniving cat Maurice (Hugh Laurie from House) has a good scam going: he unleashes his band of intelligent rats on unsuspecting towns and then extorts money to have piper Keith (Himesh Patel from Yesterday) tootle them away.
The animation is good, the backgrounds are lush, and the voice cast is starry and apt.
It's a nice little earner and although some of the rodents have qualms about the ethics, they continue with it because they want to raise enough to sail to a magical land where humans and rats live in harmony. They've been inspired by the book Mr Bunnsy Has An Adventure, a sort of Beatrix Potter take-off. Unbeknownst to them Maurice has lied to them about all this and intends to keep the loot.
But when they come to a town where there's no food, they get caught up in the mystery of it. Malicia turns up in person - she's the bookworm daughter of the Mayor (Hugh Bonneville). There are ratcatchers with a mysterious boss, an underground dog-on-rat fighting ring (discreetly done but a little disturbing) and other complications. The reason some animals are smart and verbal and others aren't is explained and so are the unusual names of rats like Dangerous Beans (David Tennant), the leader, and tapdancing Sardines (Joe Sugg).
On leaving the Dendy screening I chatted to a mother and her kids, a boy aged six and a girl who is three. They all enjoyed the movie but the younger child was a little scared towards the end. The older child had no problems.
Despite not being terribly long, the film does have slow spots, particularly later on, when it's juggling many story strands and characters - by this point there's not as much of the fourth-wall breaking. The (real) Pied Piper sequence comes off as anti-climactic and Rob Brydon has little dialogue as the PP (maybe the sinister character should have remained silent).
Another late sequence involving Death (Peter Serafinowicz) also feels a little underwhelming, though he and the mysterious ratcatcher boss could, as noted above, intimidate young children.
This is one of those Europudding productions with several companies listed at the start but is essentially an English and German film, directed by Toby Genkel and co-directed by Florian Westermann (neither of whose films I recognised). That might account for the lack of deeper feeling. American animated movies can be overly sentimental, but they can also plumb genuine emotional depths, as the best of Disney and Pixar's movie demonstrate. Not that European movies can't, but they often don't. This treats what could have been moving or menacing moments rather matter-of-factly.
But let's not be too picky., The animation is good, the backgrounds are lush, and the voice cast is starry and apt. For imaginative family entertainment and a painless introduction to some narrative techniques, this isn't bad at all.