The Amazing Maurice Parent Guide

The Amazing Maurice is an adaptation of a much beloved and celebrated book, “The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents”. However, I will be very much surprised if this film is ever beloved, or much celebrated. Having not read the source material, I cannot comment on its faithfulness to its canon. But as a general consumer of children’s movies, I can safely say this is one of the worst I’ve seen in a long time, and I would not take your kids to it, nor would I recommend you see it on your own. I have no idea for whom this movie was intended. The themes were far too dark for children; the medium far too tedious for adults; teenagers would cringe throughout. I thought often throughout the film: who is supposed to be enjoying this?

In addition to its uncertainty about its intended audience, I struggled to find a likable protagonist. The title, and main character, assure you (while playing fast and loose with the fourth wall) that the movie is about Maurice (voiced by Hugh Laurie). Maurice is a magical, talking cat with a pretty terrible code of ethics as evidenced by his scamming of strangers, his friends, and his penchant to abandon anyone as soon as he deems necessary. He travels around the country with his “friends”, an orphan boy (Himash Patel) and a group of magically enhanced rats that can also speak, as they scam village after village, convincing them of a (fake) rat infestation, and then “pied pipering” them away for a fee. A musical number tries to convince you that the whole story is actually about rats – and it does a pretty decent job. Upon reflection, it definitely feels more like a rat movie than a cat movie.

All is well and good until they come upon a town which has seemingly no rats, but all the food continues to be stolen, and they are reaching crisis levels of famine. Maurice’s rat friends embark on an adventure to solve the mystery of the missing but omnipresent rats and discover (much to my actual horror) a rat king (David Thewlis) at the center of the problem. Only this rat king is enhanced by magical powers – not like real rat kings which are horrifying enough and should make everyone recoil.

Along the way they find allies like Malicia, the Mayor’s talkative daughter (Emilia Clarke), who insists she’s the main character of the story, and is presented as the narrator before she shows up in the action, while she quips about framing devices and foreshadowing. Quite meta for a children’s film. And we also meet fairy tale characters, like the Pied Piper, the Grim Reaper, and in attempt at humor, the Grim Squeaker – you know, like the Grim Reaper except for rats.

What really brings this whole movie down is the violence. There is an allusion to the horrors of and a description of rat coursing, but if that weren’t bad enough, there is an actual scene of it. And while we don’t see dogs eat rats, we can certainly hear it, and see the horror on the faces of the rats who witness the carnage. The pied piper also casually jokes about his cannibalistic tendencies, and one of the most tense scenes shows him luring two characters towards an oven, after he has lured and cooked a turkey in the same oven. Most graphic is when the rat king’s core (disgusting enough) with its pulsing brain like knot of tails, turns to a rat and snaps its neck/back/body? Something snaps, and they collapse to the ground dead. Spoiler alert: the death isn’t permanent, but it is quite violent, and not what I would expect in a children’s film.

I do not envy the task of making rats likeable, endearing protagonists. Especially while putting the idea of a rat king in the audience’s mind. I understand why you would try to present Maurice as the hero. But he is not likable or admirable, and his selflessness comes too late for a satisfying redemptive arc. Overall, this movie’s a miss. Or at least, one I would encourage you to miss.