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The Tale of Despereaux
The Tale of Despereaux Image
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Metascore
53 out of 100

Mixed or average reviews - based on 25 Critics What's this?

User Score
5.4 out of 10

Mixed or average reviews- based on 29 Ratings

Your Score
10 out of 10
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  • Starring: Dustin Hoffman, Emma Watson, Matthew Broderick
  • Summary: Once upon a time, in the faraway kingdom of Dor, there was magic in the air, raucous laughter aplenty and gallons of mouth-watering soup. But a terrible accident left the king broken-hearted, the princess filled with longing and the townsfolk despondent. All hope was lost in a land where sunlight disappeared and the world became dreary gray. Until Despereaux Tilling was born... (Universal)… Expand
  • Director: Robert Stevenhagen
  • Genre(s): Adventure, Fantasy, Comedy, Animation, Family
  • Rating: G
  • Runtime: 93 min
  • More Details and Credits »

Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 12 out of 25
  2. Mixed: 10 out of 25
  3. Negative: 3 out of 25
  1. TV Guide
    Reviewed by: Tracie Cooper
    88
    A perfect fairytale, adhering to The Princess Bride's standards of fighting, fencing, torture, and true love, without the ham-fisted moral element of so many of its fairy-tale predecessors.
  2. The Hollywood Reporter
    Reviewed by: Michael Rechtshaffen
    60
    The flatly generic results certainly appear at odds with the picture's stirring visual style, which pays homage to the great Flemish artists.
  3. Austin Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Marjorie Baumgarten
    30
    The lesson learned from The Tale of Despereaux is that an overabundance of vocal talent does not a good cartoon make.

See all 25 Critic Reviews

User Reviews

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Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 14 out of 22
  2. Mixed: 1 out of 22
  3. Negative: 7 out of 22
  1. Treblotski
    6
    "The Tale of Despereaux" has so wonderful imagery, that all the Oscar-winning art directors should be jealous. The story is very original in here. But it's clearly for the tiny humans, so here's missing one very important thing - the humor. There's not a single funny moment in here. But the idea is very good and here's worked hard for a 6.… Expand
    • 1 of 1 users said yes
  2. TimoV.
    5
    A food loving rat ends up messing around in the kitchen with a soup, which unleashes a mayhem like never seen before. Sounds familiar, a bit like Ratatouille? Well, it's not. The Tale of Despereaux has some very beautiful passages to it, some wonderful artwork, but the animation sucks and the story is a bit too fractured to really work for this type of a film.… Expand
    • 0 of 0 users said yes
  3. Agrotera
    3
    This film was a mess. The plot was like three very crappy early-morning children's TV shows stripped of all personality and quirk and rolled into an hour and a half of extremely dull, artsy-fartsy, fragmented storylines. They obviously pushed the 'morbid' theme as far as they could while still advertising as G-rated. I thought the voice acting was pretty bad despite all the big names that worked on this movie. Every time Sigourney Weaver jumped in to preach at us through the narration, I couldn't help groaning a little ... it was that bad. I haven't read the book, but I have a feeling that most of the parts I really loathed were invented for the film.… Expand
    • 0 of 0 users said yes

See all 22 User Reviews

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