Written by Kate DiCamillo
For this book I read and watched the movie. Here is what I thought about both:
When reading the book, I was trying to figure out how they would make this into a movie. In the story, the chapters jump from character to character. In my mind it would be hard to portray that in a movie without the audience becoming confused. Right when the movie started, it was wrong for me. When Roscuro arrived at the castle, he was on a pirate ship, but in the book he had already lived in the dungeon. During his arrival, it was national soup day this was not in the book. The queen loves soup so much that she demanded it be served at every special occasion. I did like the part when Roscuro fell into her soup; it was just like I pictured it. With the rats in the dungeon, one lived Gregory, who was a prisoner not a flying fruit chef thing. I was extremely disappointed with that, because in the story Gregory is who helps Despereaux out of the dungeon. Secondly, there was another prisoner as well. In the movie, they have him as the gate keeper of the cells. He is Miggery Sow’s father, who was arrested for stealing and guilty for selling his daughter for two hens and a table cloth. Both in the book and movie Miggery Sow wants to be a pretty, pretty princess. The reason she was sent to the castle in the first place was because the castle knights came to her “uncle’s” house to take away all of their soup cooking and eating utensils. They realized that he had Mig as a slave, so they took her with them to the castle to be a servant girl for the princess. In the movie her “uncle” sells her to the knights with his pigs. Overall, the producers kept to the story line. I feel that they left out some major details that would make the story clearer to the viewer.
They used animation for this movie. The animation was great! You could not do this movie with a regular casting staff. It would have made it extremely complicated to show the talking mouse and rat communities, if they were played by real people. By using the animation, it brought the characters to life in a way that the book could not. You could really see them scurry and cower like all mice do and you could see the evil and all of the darkness in the rat community. I really like how they drew out Despereaux and the mouse community. I enjoyed how small they made him compared to all of his mouse brother and sisters. Miggery Sow was also perfect, all though when she lived with her uncle she was not plump. She gained all her weight when she lived in the castle. That is my only criticism with her. The rat community to me was all wrong. Roscuro needed to be darker looking and he did not have his red cape, which he stole from Mig’s father or the Queen’s spoon on his head, which he took when he landed her soup. Overall I enjoyed the animation in the movie. I do not have anything really negative to say about it, except I was not thrilled about Roscuro. Other than that, it brought the characters to life in my head.
Personally, I enjoyed the book way more. It was a cute movie, but it did not follow the book at all. That upset me very much. I understand that some parts of the book were dark, but I feel that those parts were needed to make the characters that they were in the book. Without those experiences they went through in the book, they would not have acted the way they did to the situation that was handed to them. Take Mig for example, if her father would not have sold her and the man he sold her to did not clot her ears every chance he got, maybe she would have been happier. However, because of all of that it made her want to do anything she could to become a pretty, pretty princess, even if that meant locking the real princess in the dungeon with all of the rats. In the movie you do not see that part. You also do not see Gregory. I was excited to see how he was going to be portrayed in the movie! When I found out he was a flying array of fruit and vegetables, I was extremely upset. I felt that he played a vital role in helping Despereaux escape from the dungeon. The movie left out way to many things and changed too many things for me to enjoy it. While I was watching it, I found myself saying this is not right or it did not go like that it went like this and so on. It just was not a great representation of the book.
I gave the movie a negative rating, because it did not follow the book. Overall it was a good movie, if you have not read the book yet. However, if you had read the book before watching, I feel you would be very disappointed in it. I think the book was made into a movie, because it shows great examples of bravery and loyalty. It also helps explain what some different emotions mean and what they can cause people do to. I think it also helps that it was Newberry Medal winner.
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