In the kingdom of Dor they are celebrating Soup Day which is more popular than Christmas. The chef and his bizarre assistant, a creature constructed of floating vegetables, cook up this years recipe but it is spoilt when Roscuro the rat (Dustin Hoffman) falls into the Queen's bowl as she about to taste it. She immediately dies from shock. The King, overwhelmed by this, bans soup, rats and fun. The kingdom becomes a very grey and depressing place, a bit like Nottingham in January.
The rats decamp to the sewers, to somewhere known as Ratworld. Enter a tiny mouse with over-sized ears and puppy dog eyes. Despereaux (Matthew Broderick) is not your usual timid mouse and goes against the grain, constantly seeking adventure. This does not go down well in Mouseworld, where cowardice is compulsory and, despite the fact he's practically a baby, he is exiled to almost certain death in Ratworld. Someone call social services. His family, don't even try to prevent this gross overreaction.
Luckily, he comes across Roscuro, who saves him from the jaws of a cat in the gladiators' arena where he has been sent by the not terribly friendly rats.
An already complicated story then gets even more so with the introduction of Miggory Sow (Tracey Ullman), a girl who is sold by her own father to the King's castle. Nice. I was a bit lost by now; I assume it was even harder for the kids in the cinema to follow.
Miggory Sow seems angry that she's not a princess, well love, most people aren't and seems jealous of the real princess, Princess Pea (Emma Watson). Miggory chunters to herself, steals some of the Princess's possessions and even attacks a painting of the girl with a knife. I think the film's hoping you feel sorry for her but you don't.
The rat then goes to Princess Pea to apologize for the Queen's death but she just throws things at him. The previously nice rat suddenly has a personality change and turns bad. He teams up with the deranged Miggory, who abducts Princess Pea at knife point and forces her down into the dungeon. Where she is tied up and seemingly left to be devoured alive by the rats. Lovely.
Hermione Granger all tied up in a dungeon... Hmmm, bet they had a chuckle about that in the scriptwriters meetings.
The rat then has a change of heart and tees it up for the brave mouse to save the day. Although the princess ends up apologising to him, despite the fact he and the psychopathic servant girl tried to kill her.
It was all so confusing and surely, it's more of the rat's story than the mouse's. At the end, they all live happily ever after of course, the rat sails off on a ship, which is how he arrived and as for the mad servant girl. She gets away with her abduction of the princess and ends up back tending the fields in the country with her Father. Bizarre.
Apparently, it's a good book but you wouldn't have known from this sorry mess.
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