christian movie review the amazing maurice

THE AMAZING MAURICE

"fantastical, unique reimagining of classic fairytales".

What You Need To Know:

Miscellaneous Immorality: For most the movie, Maurice justifies his selfish action because he’s a cat, even stealing and abandoning his friends, but he’s ultimately redeemed by the end of the story.

More Detail:

Based on a children’s book by Terry Pratchett, THE AMAZING MAURICE follows a con-artist cat and his band of loyal, talking rats. The movie pokes fun at many classic fairytale tropes. It begins with narration about a harmonious group of animals who talk, wear clothes and interact with humans.

The story then cuts to Maurice, the band of rats, and a boy named Keith posing as the Pied Piper, who are scamming villages and towns out of money. Maurice, the band’s spokesperson, claims he can solve the town’s rat problem by calling the Pied Piper. After the townsfolk pay up, Maurice, the rats and Keith take off with the money.

Although the wiser of the rats has some reservation about stealing money, Maurice convinces them to do one more con before they search for the paradise from the book which is read by the narrator from the start of the movie. However, they quickly realize that something is off about the next town. There’s no food anywhere to be seen, and there are bounties on captured rats.

While searching for food, Maurice, Keith and one of the talking rats run into the narrator, Malicia, who’s the town mayor’s daughter. Together, they discover there’s an evil mystery behind the land’s famine.

When several of the talking rats are captured, Maurice runs away to save himself. However, when the evil shows itself to the town and Maurice, he knows that if he does not work together with Keith, Malicia and the rats, the whole kingdom could be in danger.

THE AMAZING MAURICE is a unique animated adventure with tons of fun nods to classic fairytale stories like the Pied Piper, Hansel and Gretel, and more. The voice acting and excellent animation make for an entertaining animated movie.

While there is a strong message about sacrifice, the moral themes are marred by some intense sequences of peril and violence, as well as some fantasy magic. For young children, the main villain character will be frightening, and there are some jump scares that could frighten younger audiences. Ultimately, THE AMAZING MAURICE is an entertaining animated movie, but parents should use discernment before watching with their children.

The Amazing Maurice

Terry Rossio , one of the writers of " Shrek ," brings some of that fractured fairy tale energy to this week's odd duck of an animated movie, a CGI fantasy that blends the familiar with the literary work of the legendary fantasy writer Terry Pratchett . The writer of the Discworld series took a detour for the 28 th book in that series, 2001's The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents , winning the Carnegie Medal (a prize given by British librarians for the year's best children's book) for his efforts. The book sounds delightful, but Toby Genkel 's film isn't quite so. It could be because of deviations from the source, the bland visual style of the film that's just unambitious enough to be annoying, or the unengaging story, but "The Amazing Maurice" is, well, less-than-amazing. Only a game voice cast keeps it from total disaster.

Hugh Laurie voices the title character, a charming, talking cat in a world where not all animals talk. (Why he and his rat buddies can speak is one of the plot's mysteries.) Anyway, Maurice goes to small villages and sings about their rat problem, revealing that only he and his buddy Keith ( Himesh Patel ) can "pied piper" the rats out of town and save the day. For a price, of course. It's all a scam. Keith, Maurice, and even the rats (including ones voiced by Gemma Arterton and David Tennant , among others) are just trying to make a little coin on their way across the country.

Maurice and the gang cross paths with the precocious Malicia ( Emilia Clarke ), who also narrates the film in a way that pushes the boundaries of meta-quirkiness. She's a narrator who knows all of the tropes and clichés of a fantasy adventure story and so regularly calls attention to them with lines like "That's the beauty of a framing device—I can tell you things about this story you wouldn't otherwise know." Clarke has some fun with the character device of someone who seems to know the genre of film they're in, but it's a bit that grows tired before it stops, one of several choices by Rossio that feels like it thinks it's smarter than it is. It's often a problem with meta-, self-aware screenwriting because it can easily verge into pretentious condescension.

The kids probably won't notice. They'll go along for the ride as Malicia, Keith, and Maurice investigate why all the food has gone missing in a new village. Is there an actual famine or plague on the horizon? Or could it be the fault of the masked villain ( David Thewlis ) who seems to be pulling some very bizarre strings? Thewlis is the king of the malevolent voice work (his choices on "Big Mouth" are inspired) and he digs into the villain role here with gusto. To be fair, Clarke has just the right playful spirit, and Laurie nails the sly wit in a way that makes you want to see him actually voice the Cheshire Cat of Alice in Wonderland fame.

It's an A-list voice cast saddled with a screenplay that's just not up to their skill set. "The Amazing Maurice" is also another computer-animated film that never gets visually ambitious enough. Oh, it threatens to do so, with village streets that promise adventure down every alley, but the world-building here is surprisingly weak given the source material and the potential of the story to get weird. It's almost as if the producers knew they had a bizarre book to adapt but never really embraced the quirkiness of this riff on the Pied Piper. Some of the rats are delightfully bizarre, but the character design is never as adventurous as it should be.

I generally avoid direct comparisons but there's another fable-based story about a cat in theaters right now that makes it hard. " Puss in Boots: The Last Wish " was arguably the most surprising animated film of 2022, a family film that avoided sequelitis with daring visuals and a story in which parents and children could get invested. It didn't rely on the familiar, giving its universe a rich visual language and unexpected twists. "The Amazing Maurice" almost feels more like a dull "Shrek" sequel than that Oscar nominee. Malicia may know everything about the clichés of the fable genre, but that doesn't make it any more tolerable when her film falls into so many of them.

Brian Tallerico

Brian Tallerico is the Managing Editor of RogerEbert.com, and also covers television, film, Blu-ray, and video games. He is also a writer for Vulture, The Playlist, The New York Times, and GQ, and the President of the Chicago Film Critics Association.

Hugh Laurie as Maurice (voice)
Emilia Clarke as Malicia (voice)
David Thewlis as Boss Man / Rat King (voice)
Himesh Patel as Keith (voice)
Gemma Arterton as Peaches (voice)
Hugh Bonneville as The Mayor (voice)
Ariyon Bakare as Darktan (voice)
Julie Atherton as Nourishing (voice)
David Tennant as Dangerous Beans (voice)
Joe Sugg as Sardines (voice)
Peter Serafinowicz as Death (voice)
Adam Dolniak
Friedolin Dreesen
Robert Chandler
Terry Rossio
Toby Genkel

Writer (based on the book "The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents" by)

Terry Pratchett

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Parent reviews of, the amazing maurice.

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Parents Say 9 Reviews
Kids Say 2 Reviews

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This title has:

Too much violence

Fun action animated movie with silliness and Terry Patchett

Great messages

Completely chaotic and cluttered storyline - Exhausting on the senses

Good, not great, the antogonist is a really mean guy, they go overboard, dark... will promote fear, gets worse and worse, what to watch next.

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