Nov 6 2008New 'Tale of Despereaux' Trailer Bans Soup, Rats

Here's the new trailer for Tale of Despereaux, the animated movie involving difficult-to-spell CGI rodents and soup that isn't Ratataouille. Summary!

Once upon a time, in the faraway kingdom of Dor, there was magic in the air, laughter aplenty and gallons of mouthwatering soup. But an accident left the King broken-hearted, the Princess filled with longing and the townsfolk without their soup. Sunlight disappeared. The world became gray. All hope was lost in this land…until Despereaux Tilling was born.

A modern fairy tale from visionary filmmaker Gary Ross, together with directors Sam Fell & Rob Stevenhagen, The Tale of Desperaux tells the story of several unlikely heroes: Despereaux (Matthew Broderick), a brave mouse banished to the dungeon for speaking with a human; Roscuro (Dustin Hoffman), a good-hearted rat who loves light and soup, but is exiled to darkness; Pea (Emma Watson), a Princess in a gloomy castle who is prisoner to her father’s grief; and Mig (Tracey Ullman), a servant girl who longs to be a Princess, but is forced to serve the jailer (Robbie Coltrane).

My issue with this movie is that, if you watch the trailer, you see its entire plot hinges on the king banning rats and soup from his kingdom, which makes no sense. How do you ban rats? Tell them they're banned? Make little "no rats" signs? There's no way to ban rats. As far as I'm concerned, rats have always been banned. I have never willfully accepted co-habitating with rats. For me, a rat ban does not work as a plot device.

And don't even get me started on banning soup. No legitimate king would ever ban soup. Monarchies are too historically rooted in Panera Bread franchises to ever allow that kind of drastic change.