Mommy Brain

(The Tale of Despereaux was provided to me by Special Ops Media for the purpose of review.)

Once upon a time… In the far away kingdom of Dor… lived a brave and virtuous mouse with comically oversized ears who dreamt of becoming a knight. Banished from his home for having such lofty ambitions, Despereaux sets off on an amazing adventure with his good-hearted rat friend Roscuro, who leads him, at long last, on a very noble quest to rescue an endangered princess and save an entire kingdom from darkness. Based on the heart-warming children’s bestselling book and featuring the voice talents of an all-star cast, The Tale of Despereaux is a magical, modern fairytale that’s destined to win the hearts of young and old alike.

The above blurb should say “loosely based on the heart-warming children’s bestselling book, ” because the movie is very different from the book. I have to admit, I’m a book-to-movie purist. I like film adaptations that at least follow the spirit of the movie. While I understand that for time’s sake certain scenes or subplots must be cut, I believe that there’s a way you can do that without ruining the story. Take the Harry Potter movies, for example. All of them have made cuts and minor changes, but have kept to the spirit and story of the books. (On a side note, I did think that way too much was cut from The Order of the Phoenix in the director’s effort to make it the “shortest Harry Potter yet,” but whatever.)

That said, my kids are not as picky as I am about book-to-movie adaptations, especially if it’s been a while since we read the book. It had been a couple years since we read The Tale of Despereaux, and they loved the movie. In fact, not one of them even commented on the big magic man made of vegetables who never appeared in the book. They just thought it was a great adventure.

I will also say that the voice cast was pretty amazing: Dustin Hoffman, Matthew Broderick, Emma Watson, Sigourney Weaver, Stanley Tucci, Frank Langella, and Kevin Kline.

The Tale of Despereaux will be available on DVD on April 7th. The DVD special features include: Despereaux’s Quest game, Build-a-Baldo game, a making-of featurette, and more.