THE AMAZING MAURICE

Here's the decision. This is genuinely excellent animation — four stars — with sharp voice work, a clever script from a Terry Pratchett book, and a heart in the right place. Maurice the con-artist cat learns to lay down his own interests for his friends, and the film champions honesty, trust, and doing the right thing. There's a lot here worth loving.

But it earns its cautions. The main villain is frightening, there are jump scares, and the action violence runs intense throughout — an underground ring where dogs eat rats, a villain who consumes other rats, dark talk of a whole town of missing children. Layered over that is fantasy magic and an evil conjured by a kind of rat séance.

None of that is fatal for discerning viewers — but it's a lot for little ones. That's why we say watch it at home, where you can pause, explain, or step away. If your children are old enough for scary fairytales, this is a rich one; if they're not, it'll keep.

Maurice is a talking cat with a scam. Alongside a boy named Keith, who poses as the Pied Piper, and a band of clever talking rats, he rolls into town after town, promises to solve their rat problem, collects the fee — and skips out with the money.

One more con, he tells the rats, before they go looking for the paradise from an old storybook. But the next town is wrong. There's no food anywhere, and bounties posted on captured rats. Something evil is behind the famine — and Maurice's easy selfishness is about to meet a test he can't outrun.

Four stars, and here's what they buy. This is a unique, funny animated adventure stuffed with affectionate nods to classic fairytales — the Pied Piper, Hansel and Gretel, and more — turned in a fresh light. The voice acting is stellar and the animation excellent, and together they make for a genuinely entertaining fantasy.

The craft is the whole point here. The film knows its source material, plays with the tropes with real wit, and lands its central arc — a selfish cat learning to sacrifice himself for others — with feeling. If there's a caution on the filmmaking side it's tonal: the peril and scares are pitched harder than the all-ages animation packaging suggests, which is a craft choice worth knowing about before you press play. But as a piece of animated storytelling, it delivers.

At its core, THE AMAZING MAURICE tells a strong moral, lightly redemptive story. Maurice spends most of the film justifying his selfishness — he's a cat, after all — stealing and even abandoning his friends. But by the end he finds true purpose in being willing to sacrifice himself for others. Around him the film builds clear messages about honesty, trust, and doing the right thing. That's a good deal of what Scripture honors, dressed up in talking animals and fairytale comedy.

The redemptive arc is real, and worth naming plainly: a self-serving character is changed, and change comes through laying his life down for others rather than saving himself.

But that content is marred by pagan and occult elements. There's fantasy magic throughout, and the story's central evil is created by a sort of rat séance — not incidental set dressing but the engine of the plot's darkness. Parents weighing this film for younger children should factor that in alongside the scares.

The longing underneath Maurice's story is the longing to become someone better than you were — and the surprise that the way up is down, through sacrifice. Scripture puts it exactly there: "Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends" (John 15:13).

This is a smart, funny, beautifully made fairytale with a heart that points the right way — and it's also scarier and more occult-tinged than its all-ages packaging suggests. So here's our answer, the same one we opened with: wait for home, where you can pause, explain, and decide scene by scene. Younger crew tonight? Try one of our family-friendly picks instead.