Tale of Desperaux on DVD today. Hooray?

I recently sat down and watched a preview of The Tale of Desperaux on DVD, which comes out today.

I know what you are thinking, but no, I didn't watch it with my boys. As teens, they feel they are too cool for animated films these days.

But me, I love cartoons, even as an old old old old lady (as far as my kids are concerned). So I was looking forward to suspending my disbelief, letting the fantasy world of the film just wash right over me.

But you know, I just didn't care for the movie all that much.

It started out fine. Soup Day, I did like that. It was different, and amusing.

But I kept wondering where Desperaux was. It is his tale, after all.

I mean, here's this cute little mouse, with these huge ears like Dumbo, right? And he's a great character, sure, but he doesn't even show up for the first, I'd say, 20 minutes of the movie.

And, even though I know it is based on a popular story that I have admittedly not read, so I could be missing something here, I found the plot line really *bleak*.

There's a tragic death in the very first moments, and there's banishment into dark holes where no light goes, and it just goes on, people and cute critters alike walking around all sad and disturbed.

And speaking of disturbed, some of the characters in this movie are a bit disturbing. The story is very heavy, and though Desperaux is a nice little hero, the bitterness and isolation and the delusional people---well, it was all just a little bit TOO real for a an animated film, if you ask me.

I'm sorry. I really, really did want to like this film, but it just didn't do anything for me.

I think you really need to be a disciple of the original story to pick this DVD up at the store.