DESPEREAUX

Took the boys to see The Tale of Despereaux. I thought it was pretty good, though the boys were not that impressed (at least the older one---I guess there were not enough lightsaber duels). My youngest son's teacher has been reading the book to his class, so he was quite familiar with it, and even took opportunities to point out inconsistencies. He said, "they sure cut out a lot to make a movie." Ahhhh, a critic is born. For the most part, however, his attention was riveted on the screen, which is pretty good for him, as he is a fidgeter.

I was disappointed more with the movie theater we attended. They projected the film onto a screen that was far too small for it (or didn't use the right projection), and it seem a lot was cut off, not to mention that the picture was blurry. I tried to get them to sharpen it, but they didn't or wouldn't. The place is new (or I should say, an older theater that someone is trying to revive), so that might be part of the problem. They don't have their act together yet.

There were a lot of nice messages in the movie for the boys. But the action was weaker than I would have expected (the heroic part). Sigourney Weaver's role as moderator seemed to be the only thing that kept the movie together and moving forward. I thought the animation was nice, especially a lot of the detailed background scenes of the mouse town. The story was ok.

Maybe I missed it at the local restaurants, but it seemed like a perfect movie for tie-in opportunities for merchandizers. . .the mice were really cute. Even the rats. I kind of expected to see McDonald's selling little Despereaux toys.