Animated Comedy Reveals Terry Pratchett’s Work Nonetheless Defies Adaptation

The collected “Discworld” novels by Terry Pratchett are so bizarre and so imaginative and so wry that only a few filmmakers have ever critically tried to adapt them. We’ve had one short-lived live-action sequence, one quick movie, a couple of animated mini-series and three bold live-action mini-series. (“The Hogfather” is a perennial yuletide viewing expertise for all of us, or at the least it must be.)

However function movies have eluded the dwellers of “Discworld” till nearly — really wait, let me verify my watch right here — now.

“The Wonderful Maurice,” based mostly on the 2001 youngsters’s ebook “The Wonderful Maurice and His Educated Rodents,” options the voice of Hugh Laurie because the title character. He’s a cat who can discuss in a world the place cats don’t often try this, despite the fact that magic is actual, the dwelling personification of Loss of life walks amongst us and fairy-tale characters abound as nicely.

Then once more, rats can’t discuss both, however there certain are numerous speaking rats in “The Wonderful Maurice.” It seems they have been dwelling within the trash pile filled with discarded wizard’s potions, they ate a bunch of bizarre glowing goo, and now right here they’re, just like the rats of NIMH however extra simply swayed by non secular zeitgeist.

Since you see, Maurice has tricked these speaking rats into believing {that a} youngsters’s storybook, the Beatrix Potter–esque “Mr. Bunny Has an Journey,” is definitely a promise of a faraway utopia the place animals put on garments and dwell amongst people as equals. However in an effort to get there, they’ll have to lift some huge cash, naturally. So Maurice and a human being with all of the persona of a paper bag named Keith (Himesh Patel, “Enola Holmes 2”) pull a Pied-Piper rip-off, filling cities with rats after which musically eradicating them, chopping the rats in on the deal.

Sadly, the rats at the moment are growing a posh and highly effective sense of morality, thanks largely to their religious chief Harmful Beans (David Tennant). They don’t need to trick their manner into paradise. However they embark on one other job anyway in a city the place, wouldn’t you realize it, there are plot factors afoot. A few rat-catchers have already eliminated the rats, however the meals retains disappearing anyway, and now it’s as much as Maurice, Keith, the rats and the mayor’s daughter Malicia (Emilie Clarke) to resolve the thriller and save the day.

Malicia is fairly loads. She narrates “The Wonderful Maurice” through a framing system wherein she explains the idea of a framing system, after which reduces each different side of the story to a well-recognized cliché as nicely. She does this inside the story too, with virtually each line of dialogue, and the movie isn’t fairly charming or humorous sufficient to get away with that. You’ll be able to solely wink so many occasions earlier than individuals suppose you’re not doing it on objective and simply have one thing in your eye.

It’s sadly fairly endemic to “The Wonderful Maurice” as an entire. It’s a movie that’s terribly intelligent and pleased with itself, despite the fact that it hardly ever manages to make that cleverness enjoyable for the remainder of us. The movie expects applause for its encyclopedic data of tvtropes.com however hardly ever earns applause for utilizing that self-awareness to make humorous jokes, inform a satisfying story or impress us with real satirical perception.

After all, animated films about fairy-tale eventualities have been self-aware for fairly some time now, and it’s not just like the “Shrek” films have been so mind-bogglingly good that no one else can horn in on their territory. However “The Wonderful Maurice” simply has a irritating manner of constructing sensible concepts appear uninspired and humorous jokes not humorous. It’s all within the execution, and the executioner has their hood on backwards and retains swinging the axe anyway.

There are moments in “The Wonderful Maurice” the place director Toby Genkel, co-director Florian Westermann and screenwriter Terry Rossio (“The Lone Ranger”) lean closely into the non secular allegory and attempt to make critical factors about religion, however the movie units up that battle in such a halfhearted, clunky manner that it doesn’t quantity to a lot. Harmful Beans appears to be a metaphor for Christian saviors however doesn’t have very a lot to expound apart from hope is nice, and to not take the Bible — I imply, “Mr. Bunny Has an Journey” — too actually. An entire can of worms will get opened, and so they solely used one. It’s a little bit of a waste.

So far as the characters go, Malicia may be very amusing, however she sucks all of the air out of the room, leaving poor Keith suffocating for display time, character improvement or a sliver of persona. Maurice is ostensibly the lead, but it surely feels just like the film forgets about him more often than not, shoveling his path to redemption into the ultimate act the place it performs nicely however most likely might have been arrange extra successfully and to greater affect.

The animation in “The Wonderful Maurice” is all completely competent, and sometimes fairly playful, but it surely by no means fairly matches the whirlwind vitality of the story or (a few of) the characters. Solely the villainous Boss Man, voiced by David Thewlis, comes throughout like an fascinating creation. The key origins of his weird determine, swathed in saggy garments, are fairly apparent from the outset however nonetheless yield creepy, fascinating physicality.

Households complicated “The Wonderful Maurice” with a standard American animated studio movie could also be considerably stunned, nonetheless, to find that the movie goes to some deeply disagreeable locations with its animal characters. Loss of life is a literal determine right here and so is, not coincidentally, Loss of life of Rats, his rodential counterpart, and so they’re on the job as we speak. The sudden onset of violence within the movie is technically off digital camera however nonetheless harsh, and households ought to most likely be ready for it, even when it’s arguably mandatory for the heaviness of the thematic materials to sink in.

It’s tempting to log out by arguing that “The Wonderful Maurice” isn’t superb, but it surely’s not an on a regular basis movie both. It’s a seemingly trustworthy try to translate Terry Pratchett’s weird, overstuffed, heady world of marvel into an animated movie that’s comparatively family-friendly, and everyone right here deserves bonus factors for even making an attempt. They got here fairly near getting the combination proper; it could simply be an exaggeration to say they bought shut sufficient.

“The Wonderful Maurice” opens in US theaters Feb. 3.