The Tale of Despereaux (G) ** ½

Despereaux (voiced by Matthew Broderick) prepares to impress his friends in the animated adventure that tells a story of bravery, forgiveness and redemption: "The Tale of Despereaux." (Universal Pictures/MCT).

 

Robert W. Butler, McClatchy Newspapers

The Tale of Despereaux may be the most visually beautiful animated film ever. As storytelling, though, it's pretty messy, a fairy tale that cannot decide on a tone or narrative approach. Eventually, the film ends up frittering away much of its charm.

The source material -- Kate DiCamillo's Newbery Award-winning volume -- was actually three books telling separate stories (though all take place in and around the same castle at about the same time).

There's the tale of the tiny mouse Despereaux, who dreams of heroic deeds and befriends a princess. Then there's a rat who ends up in the soup of a queen and finds himself banished to the dungeon. And there's a pig-tending girl who becomes a servant in the castle and dreams of becoming a princess one day.

These three stories dovetail and are resolved in a fourth story, but screenwriter Gary Ross (Pleasantville, Seabiscuit) has jettisoned the format and bundled everything up into one big narrative. The results are unwieldy, with radical shifts in tone from scene to scene and digressions that make it seem as if the story is losing its way. Moreover, one of the thrills of the book -- discovering how three seemingly unrelated tales might come together in the end -- is lost.

But when it comes to the look of the film, just about anything can be forgiven. The filmmakers deliver several memorable set pieces. Early on there's a trip through a castle kitchen equipped with a Rube Goldberg-ish system of chutes, hoists, buckets and water wheels used to produce soup. Despereaux engages in gladiatorial combat with a hungry feline before a roaring crowd of rats; the scene might have been lifted from Gladiator.

But even in an era of super-sophisticated computer animation, Despereaux stands out. A viewer can almost get drunk just on the textures -- wood, fur, cloth, leather, wet animal noses. The character designs are just about perfect, the settings fanciful yet solidly real. Watching Despereaux is an astonishing tactile experience.

Cast: Voices of Matthew Broderick, Dustin Hoffman, Robbie Coltrane, Tracey Ullman, Emma Watson, Kevin Kline, Frank Langella, Christopher Lloyd, Stanley Tucci, William H. Macy

Directors: Sam Fell, Robert Stevenhagen

Screenwriters: Will McRobb, Gary Ross, Chris Viscardi. Based on the book by Kate DiCamillo.

Producers: Gary Ross, Allison Thomas.

A Universal release. Running time: 100 minutes. No objectionable material.

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