User reviews

The staple of some of the finest animations of recent years has been their capability to excite both the young and the old, the children and the parents. Films such as 'Up', 'Toy Story' and 'How To Train Your Dragon' have all achieved this feat, and to great box office and critical success. A Mouse Tale on the other hand, chooses to aim directly for the children's demographic, which of course isn't inherently a bad thing.

The story follows mice named Sebastian and Samantha, voiced by ex- Nickelodeon co-stars Drake Bell and Miranda Cosgrove, who attempt to find a magical crystal in order to save their kind from a rampage of rodents. Both the casting and vocal performances from these former siblings on Drake and Josh are nothing to write home about, but they do manage to energise what is an entirely predictable yet sufficient narrative through their exaggerated intonations and shrieking.

What's testing is that the vast remainder of the characters in A Mouse Tale are instantly forgettable, even characters who seem to be in grave danger just aren't that appealing and their fate appears merely trivial. The animation style is very forgettable, with obvious constraints to a tight budget resulting in a style which is uninspired but efficient nonetheless. Whilst the charm and nostalgia some of the voice actors does offer a slight motive to watch the film, the film is on the whole utterly irreconcilable with anyone over the age of six.

I'm not going to go into insane, intense detail as to why this attempt at trying to be up to par with Disney Pixar classics didn't meet up with the criteria needed in order to be a family-oriented film that will be instilled in children's, as well as adults', minds forever and that kids will impersonate scenes from, and adults will quote.

so, I'll keep it simple. if it wasn't for the fact that this film is strictly directed and enjoyable to children under 7, I would've gave this a one right from the get go. BUT it's the fact that it's ONLY enjoyable to children under 7 that made me give it a solid three. still a pretty shitty number, now I get that Disney movies are directed more to children than adults, but what makes the Disney movies magical (pun completely intended) and named "classics" is the way they perfectly mix children appeal and adult appeal, especially with the humor (minus frozen and possibly some of the newer Disney movies). this Lionsgate animation missed that mark, as well as many others, by a long shot. honestly, the only thing that I enjoyed very slightly is the fact they threw in actors from the kickass, comedic nickelodeon nostalgia Drake & Josh. Drake Bell and Miranda Cosgrove teaming up again was kind of nice, I'll admit. but them as voice actors made me want to watch minions, which is nothing but voice acting madness. drake, who played the clumsy, scatterbrained main character Sebastian (bonus points for name choice, Lionsgate), made the character almost unbearable to me, as he was too obnoxious and exaggerated with E V E R Y THING. Miranda wasn't too shabby with her character Samantha, who was practically Sebastian's counterpart.

but that's just the bottom of the feces-infested barrel. as the other review posted about this movie states, the supposed primary characters are treated as secondary, easily forgettable. none of them have unique personality and are one dimensional, other than a select few. I can't even remember the names of most of them like I can with nearly all of the secondary characters in spongebob. it just makes this film more bland and much more easily forgotten.

the plot doesn't help with instilling this movie in your memory either. it's as bland as the color of hospital walls. the protagonist has to go on a journey to save a kingdom from being taken over by the antagonist, while having the hand of the princess if successful in their task. the only slightly unique thing about the plot is the fact that the protagonist is a wizard rather than a peasant trying to become a knight. but even then, the predictability in the plot outweighs the uniqueness. the protagonist is basically clumsy and wimpy, as he's a mouse, the antagonists are, of course, rats. the rats want to take over the kingdom, because they're rats and rats are the symbol of evil apparently because they're ugly and live in sewers. the mice are innocent because mice are more appealing to look at and have softer features. references to cheese are thrown in everywhere, the princess is named mozzarella for hell's sake. the clumsy character doubts himself at the beginning of his journey, crushes on the princess, grows confidence later on, defeats the antagonist, and cue happy ending. that hits the predictable nail on the head. also, the plot seems to move fairly quickly, which is more so due to tight budgeting I'm assuming.

oh, and the lip-syncing is ATROCIOUS. never seen worse even in my childhood. that's ultimately what ruined the movie for me. textures are very bland, barely any texture at all (once again, budget cuts), which is pretty disappointing for it coming out this year, where textures can be nearly realistic. well, this wasn't very simple at all, but overall, kids under 7 will definitely enjoy. anyone above, it's a waste of an hour and 4 minutes. just put in a Disney classic for you and your kid to enjoy.

There were some talented names in the voice cast, so that was the main selling point. However, instead of the cute, exciting and funny animated film that it could have been, A Mouse's Tale just ended up bland and charmless.

Albeit with a few things that prevent it from being any worse. The Land of Giants scene is cute and imaginative, the one time where the film is any one of those things, the scene is too short but compared to the rest of the film it's a breath of fresh air while not quite being enough to make up for it. There are some nice colours in the animation and the voice cast try their best with what they have and mostly do a decent job, the big names like Tom Arnold, Cary Elwes and Jon Lovitz have had much better material but they hardly embarrass themselves either.

On the other hand, the animation on the whole is lacking, the backgrounds are nothing dreadful but not much memorable sticks out and some could have had more detail, textures are bland and rushed-looking and very cheap plastic toys look more professional than the character designs here. The lip-synching also is very sloppy, and while the soundtrack is not bad on its own it generally needed more drive, maybe more variety and doesn't fit within the film as much as it could have done, sometimes sounding too upbeat in more suspenseful-meaning scenes.

The script is a meandering mess and never seems to find the right tone. The humour is overplayed and juvenile (don't ever remember cracking a smile once, let alone a laugh), there never seems to be a sense of threat and when it does try to be darker it feels abrupt and tonally weird and the emotion felt forced. The story struggles to sustain the length or momentum, so it feels dull and too stretched, and it is not helped by that it doesn't bring anything fresh, almost everything in A Mouse's Tale has been done before and better. It has one good scene, which showed glimpses of the qualities that the film should have had throughout, but it was too short.

A Mouse's Tale is also a film that is devoid of a single interesting, let alone likable, character. All the characters are done to death stereotypes with little personality and next to non-existent development, Sebastian and the villain being especially one-dimensional. Sebastian and Samantha also suffer from that they feel too much like secondary characters when they ought to be the ones that we should care for the most, instead we barely remember them. Wasn't expecting an awful lot in the first place from Drake Bell and Miranda Cosgrove, and they didn't disappoint. Very wooden with lots of shrieking, Bell is particularly annoying.

In summary, while it is unwatchable and has moments A Mouse's Tale is a charmless affair. 3/10 Bethany Cox