Rating: PG | Runtime: 93 minutes
Release Date: December 16th, 2022 (UK) / February 3rd, 2023 (USA)
Studio: Sky Cinema / Viva Pictures
Director(s): Toby Genkel / Florian Westermann (co-director)
Writer(s): Terry Rossio / Terry Pratchett (book The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents)

The world doesn’t have a plot. Things just happen.

I’m not versed in Terry Pratchet’s Discworld, so I cannot speak on Toby Genkel’s film The Amazing Maurice (adapted by Terry Rossio from Pratchet’s 2001 Carnegie Medal-winning, twenty-eighth entry to the series) in the context of that over-arching legacy. All I can do is talk about how this standalone chapter in cinematic form provides entertainment for the whole family with a mix of child-targeted humor and adult-oriented wit.

It is a satire of the fairy tale genre as much as a fairy tale in and of itself after all. Explaining that fact by way of multiple narrators and a framing device can cause some unnecessary confusion at times (since Malicia, played by Emilia Clarke, is ostensibly narrating it twice all by herself along with the titular cat), but that chaotic nature does add to the charm.

Because it’s ultimately both hers (the daughter of the mayor of a town in the midst of a famine due to a rat infestation stealing food despite a rat-catcher—David Thewlis’ Boss Man—assuring that the rats have been caught) and Maurice’s (Hugh Laurie) tale to tell.

Her way is through genre tropes, comparing the beats of reality to those of a book in her collection about a talking rabbit living in harmony with humans while also living that reality as though it must follow those beats exactly (no matter how far-fetched doing so would prove) because one must create their own story so as not to become part of someone else’s. His way is through motivations, appealing to the audience’s good nature to understand that his being a cat (despite his speech and intelligence) allows him some latitude for a penchant to being selfishly aloof.

Connecting them together is Keith (Himesh Patel) and a band of talking rats (including David Tennant’s Dangerous Beans, Gemma Arterton’s Peaches, and Ariyon Bakare’s Darktan). Maurice cons his friends into schemes to fleece money from unsuspecting villagers that will one day pay for their retirement in a fantasy land of harmony. They do so by pretending the rats are vermin to be expunged and Keith a pied piper willing to do so for a fee.

It just so happens that Malicia’s town is next, so they arrive to put on their show and find a darkness awaits. Her overactive imagination and encyclopedic knowledge of fairy tale conventions simultaneously endears her to their plight and helps make it more dangerous. Dueling rescue plans unfold as well as a subplot about a “rat king” created by mankind’s vicious nature; the inclusion of the real, unsanitized Pied Piper (Rob Brydon); and even Death (Peter Serafinowicz) himself.

It’s a fast-paced adventure bouncing back and forth between vantage points (sometimes Maurice leads, sometimes Malicia, Darktan, or Dangerous Beans depending on how many forks are going at one time) and devices (narrator Malicia and Maurice taking control as outsider and fourth wall-breaking commentator respectively) to keep the jokes loose and the danger light.

The latter is key for young audiences since scenes get murky (like one at an underground dog fighting ring with bettors guessing how long their canine champions need to murder five rats). Lessening that violent intent helps the overall message about sacrifice and being better than preconceptions foisted upon you at birth to shoulder its equally heavy dramatic weight. The film stumbles at times and is definitely convoluted, but it also just plain works. Time to read the novel.

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Still from THE AMAZING MAURICE; courtesy of Viva Pictures.