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Tale of Despereaux, The
Universal // G // April 7, 2009
List Price: $39.98 [Buy now and save at Amazon]
"Oh, I wish it would rain. I wish there were soup again. I even wish there were rats!"
Sorry,
Princess Pea (Emma Watson). See, the fairy tale kingdom of Dor used to be a bright, cheery place where its legendary soup flowed freely. That all came to a screeching halt when an overeager rat named Roscuro (Dustin Hoffman) accidentally plummeted into the queen's bowl of bisque. After she keeled over from fright, a lovelorn king kneedeep in grief put the kibosh on National Soup Day. When goes the soup, so go the rain and sun, I guess, leaving Dor a distraught, barren, overcast, soupless wasteland.
As the king wistfully strums a lute and Princess Pea stays holed up in a remote tower, a world of critters they never knew existed is scurrying underneath their feet. Deep in the bowels of the castle is a realm of badnik rats (headed up a nasty king played by Peter O'Toole) who've taken in Roscuro, who's still stinging with regret from the whole regicide thing. Skittering around a couple floors up is an entire kingdom of mice. Their society is anchored around cowardice and fear, so Despereaux (Matthew Broderick) -- who's tiny even for a mouse but is packing a courageous streak as huge as his oversized ears -- is kind of an outcast. Mousedom has a big stack of rules to follow, and when Despereaux starts reading books instead of eating 'em and pals around with Princess Pea, the plucky little rodent is banished to certain death in Ratworld. Roscuro, meanwhile, knows he's to blame for the kingdom of Dor being so dreary and dismal, and when he tries to make amends, Princess Pea doesn't exactly take him in with open arms. Scorned and seething with anger, Roscuro turns to a dumpy, double-digit IQ servant girl (Tracey Ullman) to exact his revenge.
If that
rambling runthrough the plot sounds kind of scattershot...well, that's 'cause it is. The Tale of Despereaux's ambition far outstrips its reach. This is an hour and a half movie where the title character doesn't bound on-screen until twenty minutes in, and it zips back and forth between so many characters and subplots that they're all too glossed-over to make any real impact. Because so many of its characters disappear for long, long stretches of time and because the stories are too compressed for their changes in motivation to make any sense, The Tale of Despereaux never earns its sappy stabs at sentimentality. The Tale of Despereaux doesn't aim for laughs the way so many other computer animated flicks do these days -- it's aiming its sights towards a classic fairy tale rather than an oversized comedy -- but its few scattered stabs at whimsy fall entirely flat. Even with whirling camerawork, "sword"fights and cat-a-torial games to the death in the rat kingdom, and, inexplicably, a talking trashcan fat-packed with fruits and vegetables, The Tale of Despereaux is lethargic and never musters any spark of life or energy. At least it adds "learn to forgive!" as the quadruple-underlined moral message along with the stock "believe in yourself!" that's been the cornerstone of every animated movie over the past seventy years.
The Tale of Despereaux never figures out what the heart of its story is, the movie never settles into any sort of comfortable groove with its overall tone, and it leans too heavily on clunky narration to try to guide the story. There are brief glimmers of inspiration, such as Despereaux's beautifully realized daydreams about a knight squaring off against a fire-breathing dragon, and I appreciate the fact that the film doesn't pander to the younger crowd. There are some particularly dark moments scattered throughout The Tale of Despereaux, its visual style takes its cues from painters like Johannes Vermeer rather than the CGI flavor of the week, and the scope of its story is remarkably ambitious, even though it winds up being more than the filmmakers can handle. Without any momentum, endearing characters, or even a vaguely engaging story to latch onto, it's tough for The Tale of Despereaux to warrant much more than a couple of clicks on Netflix for the kids. Rent It.
Video
The Tale of Despereaux looks decent enough in high-def, although its restrained visual style and lower budget keep it out of the same league as Pixar and Dreamworks' best. The craftsmanship may not be quite up to par, but even though it's less polished than movies with twice the sticker price, the scope image is still bolstered by a strong sense of detail. The lighting is deliberately soft and diffused at times, and this obviously saps away some of the punch that usually goes along with computer animation on Blu-ray, although The Tale of Despereaux is generally dazzlingly crisp and clear. Contrast is unusually flat, though, and I'm surprised to see just how anemic black levels frequently are. As this is a direct-digital transfer and since fades to black are still appropriately dark and inky, I guess that's an intentional part of its visual style. Ditto for the muted palette that leaves The Tale of Despereaux looking like faded pages from an ancient storybook. The subdued colors are to be expected in an overcast world blanketed in clouds, but they aren't all that more robust when the camera zips inside or when sunlight does manage to beam its way through to this fairy tale kingdom. I don't want to make the mistake of reviewing The Tale of Despereaux's visual style rather than this high-def VC-1 encode, though, so I'll say that the movie's stylized approach translates about as well to Blu-ray as it realistically can and leave it at that.
Audio
Animated films almost always sound wonderful on Blu-ray, and The Tale of Despereaux's 24-bit DTS-HD Master Audio track is about as terrific as I could've hoped to hear. The surround channels are teeming with color: Roscuro's wooden ship creaking on the high seas, ominous drips of water in the underground catacombs, and the skitter of rats scurrying in the background. All of the dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly, not that it could ever really be overwhelmed by a low-end this modest. There's surprisingly little rumbling around in the lower frequencies, but the subwoofer does creak to life every once in a while thanks to pounding drums and claps of thunder. The lack of bass really doesn't seem terribly out of place, though, and the rest of the track is so spry and lively that I'd still point to The Tale of Despereaux's lossless audio as well above-average.
Also included are lossy DTS dubs in French and Spanish. Subtitle streams are served up in English (SDH), French, and Spanish.
Extras
The Final Word
Ambitious but aimless, The Tale of Despereaux piles on more characters and dangling storylines than it could ever hope to deftly weave together. So much of the film is fragmented and underdeveloped that nothing about it manages to pack much of a wallop, and even its stabs at colossal adventure are too routine to get any pulses racing. The Tale of Despereaux sounds nice enough on paper -- veering away from the Funny Talking Animals formula in favor of more of a wide-eyed fairy tale -- but there's just not nearly enough of a spark of life to it. Rent It.
Sorry,
) |
| [click on the thumbnail to enlarge] |
As the king wistfully strums a lute and Princess Pea stays holed up in a remote tower, a world of critters they never knew existed is scurrying underneath their feet. Deep in the bowels of the castle is a realm of badnik rats (headed up a nasty king played by Peter O'Toole) who've taken in Roscuro, who's still stinging with regret from the whole regicide thing. Skittering around a couple floors up is an entire kingdom of mice. Their society is anchored around cowardice and fear, so Despereaux (Matthew Broderick) -- who's tiny even for a mouse but is packing a courageous streak as huge as his oversized ears -- is kind of an outcast. Mousedom has a big stack of rules to follow, and when Despereaux starts reading books instead of eating 'em and pals around with Princess Pea, the plucky little rodent is banished to certain death in Ratworld. Roscuro, meanwhile, knows he's to blame for the kingdom of Dor being so dreary and dismal, and when he tries to make amends, Princess Pea doesn't exactly take him in with open arms. Scorned and seething with anger, Roscuro turns to a dumpy, double-digit IQ servant girl (Tracey Ullman) to exact his revenge.
If that
) |
| [click on the thumbnail to enlarge] |
The Tale of Despereaux never figures out what the heart of its story is, the movie never settles into any sort of comfortable groove with its overall tone, and it leans too heavily on clunky narration to try to guide the story. There are brief glimmers of inspiration, such as Despereaux's beautifully realized daydreams about a knight squaring off against a fire-breathing dragon, and I appreciate the fact that the film doesn't pander to the younger crowd. There are some particularly dark moments scattered throughout The Tale of Despereaux, its visual style takes its cues from painters like Johannes Vermeer rather than the CGI flavor of the week, and the scope of its story is remarkably ambitious, even though it winds up being more than the filmmakers can handle. Without any momentum, endearing characters, or even a vaguely engaging story to latch onto, it's tough for The Tale of Despereaux to warrant much more than a couple of clicks on Netflix for the kids. Rent It.
) |
| [click on the thumbnail to enlarge] |
The Tale of Despereaux looks decent enough in high-def, although its restrained visual style and lower budget keep it out of the same league as Pixar and Dreamworks' best. The craftsmanship may not be quite up to par, but even though it's less polished than movies with twice the sticker price, the scope image is still bolstered by a strong sense of detail. The lighting is deliberately soft and diffused at times, and this obviously saps away some of the punch that usually goes along with computer animation on Blu-ray, although The Tale of Despereaux is generally dazzlingly crisp and clear. Contrast is unusually flat, though, and I'm surprised to see just how anemic black levels frequently are. As this is a direct-digital transfer and since fades to black are still appropriately dark and inky, I guess that's an intentional part of its visual style. Ditto for the muted palette that leaves The Tale of Despereaux looking like faded pages from an ancient storybook. The subdued colors are to be expected in an overcast world blanketed in clouds, but they aren't all that more robust when the camera zips inside or when sunlight does manage to beam its way through to this fairy tale kingdom. I don't want to make the mistake of reviewing The Tale of Despereaux's visual style rather than this high-def VC-1 encode, though, so I'll say that the movie's stylized approach translates about as well to Blu-ray as it realistically can and leave it at that.
) |
| [click on the thumbnail to enlarge] |
Animated films almost always sound wonderful on Blu-ray, and The Tale of Despereaux's 24-bit DTS-HD Master Audio track is about as terrific as I could've hoped to hear. The surround channels are teeming with color: Roscuro's wooden ship creaking on the high seas, ominous drips of water in the underground catacombs, and the skitter of rats scurrying in the background. All of the dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly, not that it could ever really be overwhelmed by a low-end this modest. There's surprisingly little rumbling around in the lower frequencies, but the subwoofer does creak to life every once in a while thanks to pounding drums and claps of thunder. The lack of bass really doesn't seem terribly out of place, though, and the rest of the track is so spry and lively that I'd still point to The Tale of Despereaux's lossless audio as well above-average.
Also included are lossy DTS dubs in French and Spanish. Subtitle streams are served up in English (SDH), French, and Spanish.
) |
| [click on the thumbnail to enlarge] |
- U-Control: The Tale of Despereaux piles on two running picture-in-picture extras. The disc's making-of piece touches on just how elaborate and extensive the pencil-sketched animatics were, and the first U-Control feature stacks hundreds upon hundreds of those storyboards in the lower-righthand corner of the screen. The other PiP extra crams together footage from table readings, conversations between the cast and one of the movie's producers/screenwriters, and the voice actors tackling their scenes in a recording studio. There's quite a bit of improvisation and random notes sketched in the margins here. For my money, these are the best sorts of picture-in-picture features, and it's worth getting at least a quick taste from each of 'em.
- The Tale of Despereaux: A (Mostly) Non-Fictional Making-Of (12 min.; HD): I'm not all that keen on the movie itself, but "A (Mostly) Non-Fictional Making-Of" is a pretty solid behind-the-scenes featurette. It tears through the cutesy story-behind-the-story, its attempts at capturing the plucky spirit of this character-driven fairy tale for the screen, veering more towards a handpainted visual style for its computer animation, and the unconventional choice to bring the actors together in the studio and physically act out The Tale of Despereaux rather than just bark individually into a mic. A gaggle of writers, producers, and actors make the rounds as talking heads, and there's a hefty selection of behind-the-scenes footage to boot. Like all of the extras scattered throughout this Blu-ray disc, "A (Mostly) Non-Fictional Making-Of" is served up in high definition.
- Deleted Songs (5 min.; HD): Two additional musical numbers -- "It's Great to Be a Rat" and "Soup" -- have been tacked on here, with the music paired against pencil sketches from the story reel.
) |
| [click on the thumbnail to enlarge] |
- Scene Progressions (6 min.; HD): This featurette breezes through every step of the process: script, storyboard, animatics, and several different stages of CG renders.
- Top Ten Uses for Oversized Ears (1 min.; HD): This Letterman-style countdown for the junior set is pretty much as advertised.
- Make Your Own Soup Game (HD): This doesn't amount to much of a game, really: you pick two spices from a stack of five to cobble together a bowl of soup for the king. On the screen where you're actually doing the mixing -- or pressing a button a couple of times, at least -- the spices aren't even labeled. Like the movie itself, there's a clever spark of an idea in here somewhere that never really goes anywhere.
- Card Creator (HD): Choose from a set of several different backgrounds, adorably heroic poses for Despereaux, borders, and quotes from the movie, and then either save the finished card to your BD player or fling them to friends and family over the Internet.
- Curious George 2: Follow That Monkey! Promo (10 min.; HD): Rounding out the extras is an extended high-def plug for the animated Curious George sequel.
) |
| [click on the thumbnail to enlarge] |
Ambitious but aimless, The Tale of Despereaux piles on more characters and dangling storylines than it could ever hope to deftly weave together. So much of the film is fragmented and underdeveloped that nothing about it manages to pack much of a wallop, and even its stabs at colossal adventure are too routine to get any pulses racing. The Tale of Despereaux sounds nice enough on paper -- veering away from the Funny Talking Animals formula in favor of more of a wide-eyed fairy tale -- but there's just not nearly enough of a spark of life to it. Rent It.
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