Emma & I went to see a matinee of The Tale of Desperaux this afternoon. Just the two of us, with the whole theater all to ourselves. (Apparently, Tuesday afternoon is not a popular time for movie-going.)That was just fine with us. We picked our favorite seats and settled in with a big bag of popcorn to share. We recently read the book together, and we eagerly anticipated how they would portray various scenes, what certain characters would sound like, how scary the dungeon would be . . .
We were, unfortuntately, doubly disappointed.
Disappointment #1 - the movie was horrifically different than the book. OK, horrifically may be a bit strong. But we spent the first 30 minutes of the movie whispering to each other, "That's not where the rat comes from!" and "The chef was a woman, not a man!" and "The queen falls backwards and dies, not forward into her soup!" I've said it before and I'll say it again - I'm a book purist. WHY why why why why WHY does Hollywood always have to change the story of a perfectly good book!? (And, btw, those were all comments that Emma whispered to me. Like mother, like daughter.) :-)
Disappointment #2 - about 45 minutes into the movie, the fire alarm went off and we had to clear the theater. (It was a false alarm - the chef in the Chinese restaurant next door pulled the alarm.) So we never did get to see how terribly they slaughtered the ending. When I told Emma that we can use our ticket stubs to come back and see it another time, she said, "Let's save them for another movie and just get this one on Netflix." Love her!
We're looking forward to this one:
3 comments:
I had hoped that this movie would be good, but it seems as if so many popular/decent children's books are made into lousy movies. Film-makers must think 1) kids are stupid, and 2) parents have boundless patience/masochism.
I saw ads last night for a film version of "Inkheart." I hope it will be good, so maybe I can take the boys. As it is, they are being permananently warped by their dad. [Mike was wearing his troublemaking cap over the weekend.] I heard a strange yodeling sound from the basement Monday afternoon, and realized my nine-year-old was watching "Raising Arizona" on the treadmill, cackling, giggling and yodeling along with the music....
I didn't read the book, but thought the movie was extremely boring, will probably not buy or rent it! Maybe I will read the book!
Yeah, I thought the book was great! Sadly, they didn't follow it AT ALL! It was frustrating for me to watch & I realized I wasn't enjoying it at all... about half way through I decided I just needed to look at as a completely different story... and then I liked it. It bothered me that they took things that really worked in the book & completely changed it. I do think that if they had stuck to the book, it would've been a lot darker & it is, after all, a childrens movie. (Ear clouts, all the perdidy, dark dungeons and such). BUT I did NOT LIKE the veggie guy or the chef.. STUPID! Anyway... the kids still liked it & they read the book too. Chris liked it & didn't read it.
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