द अमेजिंग मौरिस

Being a fan of Terry Pratchett's work, I felt slightly apprehensive when I heard that The Amazing Maurice is being made into a family film. The end result, however, is as entertaining and charming as I could hope for!

There have been some changes, of course, but the spirit of the book is pretty intact, even if somewhat lighter. The visual jokes are in line with Pratchett's style of humour, and the grim and sad tones of the story get through without getting too upsetting.

Most of the character designs are really good, the only really disappointing one being Malicia's needle-thin-with-a-massive-bobble-head design that is so typical of 3D animations of the past decade.

All in all I'm positively surprised with the film!

This movie deserves a higher rating than 6.3. Come on. This is great for the kids and great for the adults. The animation is beautiful and story-like, and at the same time, the movie is very tongue-in-cheek with what 'we' expect fairy tales to be.

Maurice the cat, thinks he is the main character, obviously, but contrary to the title, the other characters are just as amazing. It's this silliness that makes you feel invested in the characters. Hugh Laurie does an amazing job as a prideful, yet sensitive Maurice. Himesh Patel is Keith, the boy with a low sense of confidence in himself, and Emilia Clarke is the colourful Malicia. The mice in the story also play a fun role, but I don't want to give the details or spoilers away.

Watch it - you'll love it. It's a great movie for kids and adults alike.

The trick with a film like this is to make a film that is both accessible to everyone, and that includes young children as well as to the Terry Pratchett faithful. I'm delighted to say this film manages both in spades.

The casting is fantastic and the animation, including British animation is wonderful and a delight not to be in the world of Disney for an animated feature. I don't know much about Terry Pratchett, but I have read this book and it manages to hit all the points that I would expect, with great characters and so many laughs in the cinema where we watched an early showing. The children, especially with riveted it seemed.

Story that has been told several hundred times in cartoons, feature and shortfilmlenght movies, theater, tv series and living very vividly in the folklore, namely the ratcatcher of hameln , germany, or the pied piper that stole all the children as ransom money for some ratpack work, so now you know...

but there are quite a few original digressions to the story, and maurice the cat is one of them, still not able to play the flute, he is the real mobster that steal from the poor and never gives it back...

production is pretty generic when it comes to advanced animation, and the first 30 minutes scriptwise isenglishenglish spoken uziwise at a heck of a speed without telling much actually, but after that it works, and they are able to draw you into the royamune of the ratking, an underground landscape so lavishly animated and coloured i just ended up fascinated.

So have a happy hour with maurice and his bunch, is a recommend from the grumpy old man.

I was positively shocked from watching this. It feels that this is what Disney has forgotten how to be. It's an animation. It's a stellar animation. It's an animation with talking animals. It's a comedy. It's satirical. And it's just... so, sooooo attentive to detail. Tons of carefully crafted mimicry and gestures, faces, expressions, poses. I can't quite remember the last time I saw anything like it.

Sure, there is no wow effect. It might not look great on the big screen, where you are supposed to see clear blobs of image, while counting every rendered piece of air, and with no pause or rewind. In terms of cost - this is obviously no big production(though the animation is spectacularly clean). But that's what the big productions lack nowadays - soul. Making a single meme face is enough. Meanwhile this little gem is just filled with emotion in every scene.

On top of that - I have to give props to the voice cast. Whether it's the script, the audio engineer or the relatively stellar cast - it's a pleasure to hear virtually any character in this film. I can't say that there's any remarkable music, given the budget, but it's enough to serve the purpose.

Finally, and this is important - this film is clean. There is no agenda. It's an honest family-friendly picture. Funny, with careful moral of the story woven in, just enough for the kids to figure out, but without being preachy or propagandistic.

Maybe the 9\10 rating is a bit too much, given that this is something to reserve only for historical pictures, but this is a small, European production. When even the multi-hundred-million dollar Hollywood flops often can't convince you - how else to show appreciation for the underdog?