The Amazing Maurice review – rodent crime caper is a riot of silliness

The rodent successful complaint of the rescue ngo explains that picking up the scent of their missing comrade was easy: “He was widdling each the way.” Just 1 of the galore hilarious lines successful this household animation adapted from the Terry Pratchett children’s caller astir a unit of scam creator rodents. My favourite infinitesimal involves a rat connected death’s doorway coming look to look with the grim squeaker.

The movie is simply a riot of silliness from commencement to finish, featuring apical dollar actors hamming it up nicely, making up for not immoderate not particularly dazzling animation. The mounting is ye olde bubonic times, wherever Maurice (Hugh Laurie) is simply a conniving ginger tom, and the brains down a Pied Piper racket. He is moving successful cahoots with a battalion of rats and a gormless lad called Keith (Himesh Patel). Of the supporting formed David Tennant is fantastic arsenic the rats’ spiritual guru Dangerous Beans, an ageing crusty successful a holey jumper. On a emblematic operation, Maurice sends successful the rats, who overrun a village, whipping up fears of a plague. Then successful comes Keith playing a flute pretending to beryllium the piper of yore. Voila, the rats exit and the locals wage up. It’s a bully small earner, but Maurice and the pack travel unstuck successful a colony called Furry Bottom.

This is simply a movie with a batch of charm, and gives cinema its astir lovable rats since Ratatouille. But I did wonderment astatine points who the assemblage is. Little ’uns whitethorn beryllium puzzled by the blase wordplay – successful peculiar the meta commentary of Emilia Clarke’s quality Malicia, the clever clogs bookworm girl of the politician of Furry Bottom, arsenic she pokes amusive astatine crippled cliches. And older kids whitethorn consciousness excessively grown up for cute fluffy talking animals.