Director: Toby Genkel
Cast: Hugh Laurie, Emilia Clarke, David Thewlis, Himesh Patel, Gemma Arterton, Ariyon Bakare, Joe Sugg, Julie Atherton, Hugh Bonneville, Rob Brydon, Peter Serafinowicz, David Tennant
Rating: (PG) ★
REVIEWED BY JEREMY QUINN
I’ve said many times before that I’m not a fan of CG-animated kids’ movies, although I always try to give them the benefit of the doubt.
A few I’ve seen in the last couple of years have fitted easily into the ‘‘perfectly fine’’ category, and there are some of the Disney/Pixar variety that I genuinely do like quite a lot.
So, let me start with a few positives. The Amazing Maurice (Rialto), which is surprisingly based on an award-winning children’s novel by Terry Pratchett (part of his Discworld series), has some rather well-drawn/rendered backgrounds and a spirited voice performance by Emilia Clarke (Game of Thrones) as the feisty heroine Malicia.
Sadly, this is where the fun ended for me, the rest of the film being barely preferable to a 90-minute root canal with no anaesthetic.
The problems are twofold. Firstly, it’s the ugliness of the character designs that really irritated me. The budget here is likely higher than many others of its ilk, so they are at least nicely detailed, but they’re so smirkingly smug it drove me nuts.
Secondly, there’s the story itself, a sub-Shrek knockoff riffing on the Pied Piper of Hamelin, which utilises the world’s most annoying framing device to ram the point home.
Basically, Malicia is an avid reader of fairy tales, and so feels the need to add ironic postmodern commentary, at literally every step of the way, on the stage that the heroes are at in their oh-so-dull journey.
It’s the pits.
