''The Amazing Maurice'' is a 2022

computer-animated Computer animation is the process used for digitally generating animations. The more general term computer-generated imagery (CGI) encompasses both static scenes ( still images) and dynamic images (moving images), while computer animation refe ...

fantasy comedy film directed by Toby Genkel and co-directed by Florian Westermann, from a screenplay by

Terry Rossio Terry Rossio (born July 2, 1960) is an American screenwriter. He co-wrote the films ''Aladdin'', ''Shrek'', and all five of the ''Pirates of the Caribbean'' series. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for ''Shrek' ...

, based on the 2001 novel ''

The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents ''The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents'' is a children's fantasy novel by British writer Terry Pratchett, published by Doubleday in 2001. It is the 28th novel in the ''Discworld'' series and the first written for children. The story is a ...

'' by Terry Pratchett. The film stars Hugh Laurie,

Emilia Clarke Emilia Isobel Euphemia Rose Clarke (born 23 October 1986) is an English actress. She is best known for her portrayal as Daenerys Targaryen in '' Game of Thrones''. She has received various accolades, including an Empire Award, a Saturn Award, ...

, David Thewlis,

Himesh Patel Himesh Jitendra Patel (born 13 October 1990) is a British actor, musician, and singer. He is known for portraying Tamwar Masood on the BBC soap opera ''EastEnders'' from 2007 to 2016, for starring in the 2019 musical romantic comedy film '' Yes ...

Gemma Arterton Gemma Christina Arterton (born 2 February 1986) is an English actress and producer. After her stage debut in Shakespeare's ''Love's Labour's Lost'' at the Globe Theatre (2007), Arterton made her feature film debut in the comedy ''St Trinian's'' ...

Joe Sugg Joseph Graham Sugg (born 8 September 1991) is an English YouTuber and actor. In 2012, he began posting videos on the YouTube channel ThatcherJoe, currently at over 7 million subscribers. In 2018, he was a finalist on the Strictly Come Dancing (s ...

Ariyon Bakare Ariyon Bakare () is an English actor. He has appeared in the BBC soap opera ''Doctors'' (2001–2005) as Ben Kwarme, the Amazon Prime series ''Good Omens'' and ''Carnival Row'' (2019), and the BBC series ''His Dark Materials''. Prior to this, ...

Julie Atherton Julie Atherton is a British actress and singer. On 3 October 2009, she finished portraying the roles of Kate Monster and Lucy the Slut in the West End production of '' Avenue Q''. She released her debut album, ''A Girl of Few Words,'' on 2 Octo ...

, Rob Brydon,

Hugh Bonneville Hugh Richard Bonneville Williams (born 10 November 1963) is an English actor. He is best known for portraying Robert Crawley, Earl of Grantham, in the ITV historical drama series ''Downton Abbey''. His performance on the show earned him a nom ...

and David Tennant. The story follows Maurice, a streetwise ginger cat who befriends a group of talking rats by coming up with a money-making scam. An animated

film adaptation A film adaptation is the transfer of a work or story, in whole or in part, to a feature film. Although often considered a type of derivative work, film adaptation has been conceptualized recently by academic scholars such as Robert Stam as a dial ...

of Pratchett's novel was announced in June 2019, with Rossio writing the screenplay. Most of the lead cast members were hired in November 2020, with additional cast being added in May 2021. Animation was provided by Studio Rakete and Red Star 3D. ''The Amazing Maurice'' had its premiere at the

Manchester Animation Festival Manchester Animation Festival is an annual animation festival based in Manchester Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pe ...

on 13 November 2022, and was released in the United Kingdom on 16 December, by

Sky Cinema Sky Cinema is a British subscription film service owned by Sky Group (a division of Comcast). In the United Kingdom, Sky Cinema channels currently broadcast on the Sky satellite and Virgin Media cable platforms, and in addition Sky Cinema on ...

. It was released on 3 February 2023 by Viva Pictures in the United States. The film received generally positive reviews from critics.

Plot

Maurice tells a town of people that they have a plague of rats, illustrated by various rats terrorizing the townsfolk and convinces them to pay for Keith, the

pied piper The Pied Piper of Hamelin (german: der Rattenfänger von Hameln, also known as the Pan Piper or the Rat-Catcher of Hamelin) is the title character of a legend from the town of Hamelin (Hameln), Lower Saxony, Germany. The legend dates back to ...

, to lead them outside of the town. Outside the town, the rats are revealed to be sentient and literate, working with Keith and Maurice to defraud towns. They are heading to the town of Bad Blintz next which suffers from a lack of food and where rat catchers have been unable to find the reason of the disappearing food. Trying to infiltrate the tunnels under the city, the rats notice that there are no local rats despite traces of them. They find a trap that captures rats alive and Darktan, their leader, is trapped inside. Meanwhile, Maurice has entered the mayor's house and when Keith tries to find him, they meet the mayor's daughter, Malicia, who quickly deduces - after seeing tap-dancing rat Sardines - that they are behind the recent plague of rats in nearby towns and enlists them to help discover the reason behind the city's food shortage. Their quest leads them to the local rat catchers' headquarters where they find a secret passage to the basement filled with food. They also find Darktan and the other rats coming from the tunnels with the trap they found. Maurice correctly guesses that the rat catchers are trying to catch the rats alive to use them for entertainment, pitting dogs in rings with rats and betting on how fast they are killed. The rat catchers catch Sardines and use him for the ring but he is rescued by the others. Poisoning the food with laxatives, Maurice, Keith and Malicia manage to force the rat catchers to admit that they created a

rat king A rat king is a collection of rats whose tails are intertwined and bound together in some way. This may be a result of an entangling material like hair, a sticky substance such as sap or gum, or the tails being tied together. Historically, thi ...

when eight rats they left in a bucket got their tails knotted and developed an evil sentience, capable of controlling other rats. Maurice flees from the rat king while Keith and Malicia head to the woods to find the real pied piper and steal his magical flute, the only instrument known to kill a rat king. Meanwhile, the Big Boss, revealed to be the rat king in a pile of human clothes, has captured Peaches, one of the rats, and Dangerous Beans, the group's spiritual leader, tries to rescue her. Confronting the rat king in the rat catchers' office, Maurice appears and hits him with the money they swindled, allowing him to escape with the two rats. In the woods, Keith and Malicia attempt to steal the flute from the sleeping piper but he wakes up and tries to kill them by forcing them to enter the burning oven. They are saved when the wind-up toy mouse Malicia previously took from Darktan distracts him long enough to lose the flute, allowing them to run back to town with the flute. Meanwhile, Maurice and the rats try to flee the city but are stopped by the rat king who summons dozens of rats from all directions to make himself stronger. Maurice runs into the woods to find the two humans while the rats are attempting to resist the rat king's call to merge with him. Keith and Malicia return and after some initial hurdles, he manages to play the flute correctly to beguile the rats away from the rat king's influence until only the king itself remains. The rat king uses the last of his power to freeze everyone in place but Dangerous Beans manages to break free, defying him again. The rat king then telepathically snaps his neck. Laying dying, Dangerous Beans reminds Maurice to be a cat and he uses his bottled up instincts to attack and kill the rat king, mortally wounding himself in the process. When Death and the Death of Rats arrive to take Dangerous Beans and one of Maurice's lives, he successfully trades one of his lives for Dangerous Beans' life, allowing both of them to wake up. Malicia and Keith also start a relationship as they developed feelings for each other over the course of their adventure. With the rat king defeated and the food given back to the townspeople, the town and the rats come to an agreement. The rats get to live in the middle of town and Bad Blintz becomes a tourist attraction with its talking rats, including a job for Keith as the town's official piper.

Voice cast

* Hugh Laurie as Maurice *

as Malicia * David Thewlis as Boss Man *

as Keith *

as Peaches *

as The Mayor * David Tennant as Dangerous Beans * Rob Brydon as The Pied Piper *

as Nourishing *

as Darktan *

as Sardines *

Peter Serafinowicz Peter Szymon Serafinowicz ( ; born 10 July 1972) is an English actor, comedian, director and screenwriter, best known for his roles as the title character in the 2016 live-action series of ''The Tick'', Pete in ''Shaun of the Dead'' (2004) and ...

as Death

Production

In June 2019, the adaptation of Terry Pratchett's novel into an animated film was announced. Additionally,

was stated to be the screenplay writer, Carter Goodrich the concept character designer, Toby Genkel the film's director, and Julia Stuart of SKY, Rob Wilkins of Narrativia, Emely Christians, Robert Chandler and Andrew Baker as producers. In October 2019, sales for the film began and art work from the production was released. The voice cast of Hugh Laurie,

, David Thewlis,

and

was announced in November 2020. David Tennant, Rob Brydon,

and

were added to the voice cast in May 2021.

Music

On 6 April 2021, Tom Howe was announced to composed the film's musical score.

Release

''The Amazing Maurice'' had its premiere at the

on 13 November 2022, and was released in United Kingdom on 16 December, by

. It is set to be released in the United States by Viva Pictures on 3 February 2023, after being delayed from a 13 January 2023 release. It had its American premiere at the

2023 Sundance Film Festival The 2023 Sundance Film Festival took place from January 19 to 29, 2023. The first lineup of competition films was announced on December 7, 2022. Films U.S. Dramatic Competition * ''The Accidental Getaway Driver'', directed by Sing J. Lee * ...

Home media

''The Amazing Maurice'' was released on

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kin ...

and

Blu-ray The Blu-ray Disc (BD), often known simply as Blu-ray, is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released on June 20, 2006 worldwide. It is designed to supersede the DVD format, and capable of sto ...

by Dazzler Media (under license from

Universal Pictures Universal Pictures (legally Universal City Studios LLC, also known as Universal Studios, or simply Universal; common metonym: Uni, and formerly named Universal Film Manufacturing Company and Universal-International Pictures Inc.) is an Ameri ...

) on 1 May 2023.

Reception

Box office

, ''The Amazing Maurice'' has grossed $4.3 million in the United States and Canada, and $15.8 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $20.1 million.

Critical response

Review aggregator A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews of products and services (such as films, books, video games, software, hardware, and cars). This system stores the reviews and uses them for purposes such as supporting a website where users ...

website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

reports that 74% of 50 sampled critics gave the film a positive review, with an average rating of 6.3/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "You may not necessarily need to rush out and see it right meow, but ''The Amazing Maurice'' is a solid book adaptation that makes for fun family viewing." Guy Lodge of ''Variety'' said the film was "genuinely eccentric enough — with its sly talking cat, intrepid band of gold-hearted rats and chronic aversion to keeping the fourth wall intact — to come off as charming rather than smarmy." ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

s Cath Clarke gave the film 3/5 stars, writing, "This is a film with a lot of charm, and gives cinema its most lovable rats since ''Ratatouille''. But I did wonder at points who the audience is." Paul Byrnes of ''

The Sydney Morning Herald ''The Sydney Morning Herald'' (''SMH'') is a daily compact newspaper published in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, and owned by Nine. Founded in 1831 as the ''Sydney Herald'', the ''Herald'' is the oldest continuously published newspaper ...

'' also gave the film 3/5 stars, calling it "funny, wacky, fast-paced and somewhat hollow" and "a tad shrill and exhausting, especially when non-stop talker Malicia arrives inside the frame, bouncing around like a caffeine-fuelled teen know-it-all."

Kevin Maher Kevin Andrew Maher (born 17 October 1976) is a former professional footballer and coach who played as a midfielder. He is head coach of National League side Southend United. Born in England, he represented the Republic of Ireland internationall ...

of ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (fou ...

'' gave the film 2/5 stars, criticising what he called its "creaky gags about poststructural textual analysis" and adding, "This might not have mattered so much if the characters around Malicia were lively, witty or even, yes, animated. Instead these educated rodents are oddly interchangeable."

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Amazing Maurice, The 2022 films 2022 3D films 2022 comedy films 2022 fantasy films 2022 computer-animated films 2020s British animated films 2020s German animated films 2020s children's comedy films 2020s children's fantasy films 2020s children's animated films 2020s fantasy comedy films 2020s English-language films British 3D films British computer-animated films British children's comedy films British animated fantasy films British fantasy comedy films German 3D films German computer-animated films German children's comedy films German animated fantasy films German fantasy comedy films Metafictional works Discworld films and television series 3D animated films English-language German films Animated films based on British novels Animated films based on children's books Films based on Pied Piper of Hamelin Animated films about cats Animated films about rats Films about pets Animated films about orphans Films set on fictional planets Films directed by Toby Genkel Films with screenplays by Terry Rossio Films postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic Films impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic British animated comedy films German animated comedy films