Maurice, a film by James Ivory, is set in the late 19th century England. The story follows Maurice Hall (played by James Wilby) who has been brought up by his uncle, Mr. Milbrook (played by Rupert Graves), after his father dies. When he moves to London to live with his uncle and aunt, they decide that he should marry someone wealthy so that they can get some money from their daughter’s inheritance; this plan doesn’t work out as well as they had hoped because Maurice falls in love with Clive Durham (played by Hugh Grant).
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ToggleThe Amazing Maurice is a fun and beautifully animated take on Pratchett’s book of the same name.
The story follows Maurice, a cat who lives in the town of Bad Blintz with his owner, an old woman named Miss Flitworth. He spends most of his time hanging out with his best friend, a rat named Rex. One day while playing chess by the riverbank, they hear an odd noise coming from nearby bushes that turns out to be two wizards, Grimmaud and Ponder Stibbons. They are looking for their friend, Cutangle, who has been transformed into a werewolf. Only once he can return to normal will he be able to marry Granny Aching’s granddaughter Agnes. Accompanied by Moist von Lipwig (the man who invented postage stamps), they set off on an epic adventure filled with danger and excitement!
As someone who hasn’t read Terry Pratchett’s book The Amazing Maurice And His Educated Rodents before watching this film adaptation by Boxtree Ltd., I was pleasantly surprised at how much fun it turned out! Partly because there wasn’t any dialogue whatsoever except during scenes where characters were thinking about what others said earlier in those scenes (which is fairly common practice these days). When characters spoke directly towards each other then those words would appear above their heads so everyone could see what was being said without needing anything else besides visuals alone.
Maurice and his band of rats are con artists, but Maurice’s not happy about it. He wants to be like his father. A famous musician who was given human intelligence by a magical flute. But when Maurice discovers an orphaned boy named Oliver in the streets and brings Oliver home to live with them, things get complicated for their scam business.
Maurice is a street-smart cat who leads a band of rats whose members are the descendants of rats given human intelligence by a magical flute. The rats’ mission is to find other humans who also have been transformed by the flute so they can return home together and defeat the evil Cat King (also known as Lord Farquaad).
The rats are posing as plague-carrying rats. They decide to use their powers to con the citizens out of money whilst pretending to be plague-carrying rats.
In this movie, Maurice and his gang are not actually plague-carrying rats, but they’re pretending to be them because they can’t let anyone know that they’re really just regular old mice.
With their plan going well, they begin to wonder if all in the town is right as strange things begin to happen to the children and suspicion begins to fall on them. When Maurice’s parents are called into police headquarters for questioning, Maurice and his friends hatch a new plan to save him from arrest.
The rats are the most fascinating characters and it was wonderful seeing them in action. Led by a cat named Maurice, they’re a band of thieves whose main focus is stealing from the town’s children. They even have their own song to help them remember what they need to do:
The rats are given human intelligence by a magical flute, which teaches them how to read and write as well as other skills needed for survival outside of their sewer home. The first thing Maurice does with this new found knowledge is make a list of things he wants for his birthday (a pipe), but soon after that he decides that his new intellect can be used for more noble purposes than just getting stuff for himself. He decides to use it instead towards helping the very people who were once his targets—the children of Hamelin Town.
This was a delightful movie with some great animation and fun characters. The rats were especially interesting as they are the descendants of rats given human intelligence by a magical flute. With their plan going well, they begin to wonder if all in the town is right as strange things begin to happen to the children and suspicion begins to fall on them.