Review of The Tale of Despereaux (2008) by Anita M — 20 Apr 2010

Of all the books that could have been made into a movie, The Tale of Despereaux should have been the best. This movie, however, was a travasty and destroyed one of the most beautiful books ever written! I understand that the book as it was written needed a bit of 'tweaking' to make it acceptable and completely appealing as a movie, but this was not the way to go about it.

They took a story that was a relatively new concept- a hero who was afraid to be a hero but did it anyway without realizing it- and smashed it back into the mold of what they considered to be the classic fairytale.

This story was not meant to be a classic fairytale! The book was about a truly unlikely hero, but the movie made it about a typical, everyday hero. This film also happened to lack good transitions, good dialogue, good plot, and the honesty and clarity of the original characters from the book.

This wasn't just a bad book adaptation, it was an all-around bad movie. I wouldn't have liked it even if I hadn't loved the book first. The animation was alright and the voice acting was good, but those are the only things going for this movie.

I will never watch it again, and I hope nobody else ever does.