Worth: $13.00
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Hugh Laurie, Emilia Clarke, David Thewlis, Himesh Patel, David Tennant, Gemma Arterton, Hugh Bonneville, Rob Brydon [voices]
Intro:
… easily consumable but a little forgettable in the process.
There’s a wonderful quirk that runs right through the works of Terry Pratchett. Off kilter and mischievous, the late writer had an uncanny knack for taking on a well-trod genre, deconstructing and fashioning it into something new. When it comes to adapting his work, those tasked to do so often succeed by how well they embrace that unconventionality and quirkiness, with Amazon Studios’ Good Omens being a great example. With The Amazing Maurice, much of that unconventionality is pulled back in favour of a safer, albeit rather charming, retread of Pratchett’s tale, making it easily consumable but a little forgettable in the process.
Based upon Pratchett’s 2001 Discworld novella The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents, we follow a ginger feline, Maurice (Hugh Laurie), a sly, clever and talking cat who moves from town to town pilfering money from unsuspecting townsfolk by manufacturing a plague with his very own cohort of talking anthropomorphic rats. And Keith, sweet, dumb Keith (Himesh Patel), a young man who acts as the group’s pied piper when it comes time to cleanse a town of the rats and move on to the next con.
When the crew arrive in the small town of Bad Blintz, they have their work cut out for them, encountering a place completely out of food and a mysterious trio of rat catchers already embedded in the municipality. Maurice, Keith and the chatty rodents team up with the almost annoyingly plucky Malicia (Emilia Clarke), fairy tale fanatic and daughter of the town mayor, to solve the mystery of the stolen food and to fill the bellies of the townspeople.
The Amazing Maurice is light entertainment. It’s fluffy, often times funny, and has the advantage of a great voice cast of actors led by Laurie. Emilia Clarke does wonderfully as the vibrant Malicia, David Thewlis’ Boss Man is almost reminiscent of Jeremy Irons’ work in The Lion King, and David Tennant brings that sincere tenderness audiences love him for as Dangerous Beans. At 93 minutes, it never overstays its welcome, the story forever at a brisk clip.
The need to Shrek-ify the story becomes The Amazing Maurice’s biggest misstep. Directors Toby Genkel and Florian Westermann end up relying too heavily on the retreading of the same self-aware toolbox that made a certain big, green ogre so popular back in the early 2000s. It’s no wonder this could be the case given the narrative architect behind Shrek, Terry Rossio, also acts as the film’s screenwriter. The meta comedy and filmic deconstruction can be effective, but by employing those same tropes here, it almost wipes away any of what makes Pratchett’s writings special.
The same could be said for the animation. While by no means poorly made, it still leaves a lot to be desired, especially when one considers that we’re coming off the back of del Toro’s Pinocchio. While the design gets the job done (and is sometimes clever, such as the Beatrix Potter like animation in the story book the crew read), it will by no means leave much of an impression once the credits roll.
Pratchett’s work is a deep well of weird and wonderful, and adapting those stories should be treated as such. His work allows for boundary pushing, no matter the medium. And while The Amazing Maurice is well made, it works best when it embraces the foibles of Pratchett’s universe, which it doesn’t do nearly as often as it should.
