Movie review
December 16, 2022 · 93 min · PG · Kids · Fantasy · Animation · Comedy · Adventure · Family
Maurice is a clever talking cat who tricks towns with a group of educated rats and a young flute player named Keith. The scam sends the group to Bad Blintz, where the food is missing but the rats have vanished. Maurice, Keith, the rats, and the mayor’s book-loving daughter Malicia uncover a dangerous Rat King and a plan that threatens the town. The film uses bright animation, jokes, fairy-tale twists, and a few dark scenes about fear, death, and betrayal.
The clearest audience-visible social message is that different kinds of beings should live together and reject forced group thinking. The ending lets the rats live openly in the town, while Maurice learns to care about the group he once used. Malicia is a brave, clever girl who helps solve the mystery, and Keith is a brown-skinned young hero who grows in confidence. These choices add mild representation and inclusion signals, but they sit inside a fantasy story about friendship, free choice, and shared survival.
Community feedback
Was our 22% Woke rating accurate?
Breakdown
These are the editorial factors and ratings behind our score for The Amazing Maurice.
Woke representation / casting
Keith is shown as a brown-skinned young human hero in the main group. Malicia is a clever and brave girl who helps lead the investigation, but the story presents those traits as part of her character rather than as a diversity campaign. The cast does not show a repeated one-of-each pattern, and no marketing or interview makes casting an identity statement. This is a mild audience-visible representation signal.
12%
Woke political dialogue
Malicia says that people should write their own story instead of becoming part of someone else’s. The rats argue over freedom, group control, and peaceful coexistence. The film does not connect these ideas to current parties, laws, or identity politics. This is a mild liberal message, not a major political program.
12%
Identity-driven story themes
The story treats rats as a group that deserves to be seen as individuals rather than as pests. The Rat King tries to erase personal choice by forcing many rats to share one mind. The ending accepts the rats as open members of the town and presents living together as the answer. These recurring ideas give the film a clear inclusion message, but the message stays inside a fantasy story about animals.
28%
Western institutional / cultural critique
Not present. The film mocks greedy rat catchers and a town trapped by fear, but it does not make a modern activist attack on Western institutions, family life, religion, or traditional gender roles. One old-fashioned joke mentions women in kitchens, but the film does not build a critique around it.
0%
Woke character or canon changes
Not relevant. The film changes some plot details from the Terry Pratchett book, including the rat catchers and the ending. The changes serve the shorter family film and do not clearly push an identity or DEI message.
0%
Anti-woke backlash and complaints
Not present. Searches found no major anti-woke or right-leaning complaints about the film. Fans mainly debated the animation, lighter tone, romance, meta jokes, and changes from the book.
0%
Creator track record context
Toby Genkel and Florian Westermann have cached scores of 0, and Terry Rossio has a cached score of 10. Terry Pratchett has a cached score of 46 for humanist satire and criticism of rigid power, without a clear modern identity focus. The other cached crew scores are mostly low, although Emely Christians has a score of 20 for representation comments tied to another project. This supports a low creator track record context score.
15%
Production
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