The Tale of Despereaux (2008)

User Rating:

6.1/10   

Directors:

Sam Fell
Robert Stevenhagen

Writers:

Kate DiCamillo (book)
Will McRobb (screen story)

Release Date:

19 December 2008 (USA)

Genre:

Adventure | Animation | Comedy | Family | Fantasy

Tagline:

Small Hero. Big Heart.

Plot:

The tale of three unlikely heroes - a misfit mouse who prefers reading books to eating them, an unhappy rat who schemes to leave the darkness of the dungeon, and a bumbling servant girl with cauliflower ears - whose fates are intertwined with that of the castle's princess. |

Plot Keywords:

Book | Dungeon | Mouse | Darkness | Princess

Awards:

7 nominations

US Showtimes:

(register to personalize)

Cast

Matthew Broderick	...	Despereaux (voice)
Dustin Hoffman	...	Roscuro (voice)
Emma Watson	...	Princess Pea (voice)
Tracey Ullman	...	Miggery Sow (voice)
Kevin Kline	...	Andre (voice)
William H. Macy	...	Lester (voice)
Stanley Tucci	...	Boldo (voice)
Ciarán Hinds	...	Botticelli (voice)
Robbie Coltrane	...	Gregory (voice)
Tony Hale	...	Furlough (voice)
Frances Conroy	...	Antoinette
Frank Langella	...	Mayor
Richard Jenkins	...	Principal
Christopher Lloyd	...	Hovis (voice)
Charles Shaughnessy	...	Pietro (voice)

Runtime:

93 min | 90 min

Country:

UK | USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital | DTS | SDDS

Certification:

USA:G (certificate #44910) | UK:U | Ireland:G | Australia:G | Portugal:M/4 (dubbed version) | Portugal:M/6 (original version) | Norway:7 | Czech Republic:U | Portugal:M/6 (subtitled version) | Finland:K-7 | Canada:G (all jurisdictions) | Singapore:G | South Korea:All | Netherlands:6 | New Zealand:PG | Switzerland:7 (canton of Vaud) | Switzerland:7 (canton of Geneva) | Hong Kong:I | South Africa:PG | Greece:K | Argentina:Atp | Peru:PT | Brazil:Livre | Mexico:A | Sweden:7

Company:

Universal Pictures

Trivia:

A number of characters have names that are artistic references. "Roscuro" refers to the "Chiaroscuro Movement", Botticelli is a reference to the artist Sandro Botticelli, painter of "The Birth of Venus", and Boldo is named after Giuseppe Arcimboldo, a famous surrealistic painter who composed faces and figures out of various objects in the way that Boldo himself is made out of fruit, vegetables and kitchen utensils.

Goofs:

Continuity: When Despereux is about to be dropped into the rat dungeon, he has red string wrapped around his waist. The camera cuts away to show the dungeon, and when it comes back to see Despereux, the red string is missing.

Quotes:

Narrator: [voiceover] I could say they lived happily ever after, but what's the fun in that?

Movie Connections:

Featured in The 81st Annual Academy Awards (2009) (TV)

Dropped the book, and the ball

My Girlfriend was extremely excited about this movie as she is a 4th grade teacher and this is one of her favorite books. So as a prequel to seeing the movie She made me read the book so it was fresh in my mind. This really didn't matter as if you forget about the names this is almost nothing like the book. There are similarities to the book in this movie but most of the major plot points are hit upon wrong, forgotten, or just dropped completely. Even after I gave up on being like the book early on the movie was really clunky. One problem being they used concepts from the book that they didn't explain in the movie such as Miggery being deaf but not explaining why.