The Amazing Maurice (2022)

Directors: Toby Genkel, Florian Westermann
Writers: Terry Rossio, Terry Pratchett, Robert Chandler

Cast: Hugh Laurie, Emilia Clarke, David Thewlis

Synopsis:

Maurice tells a town of people that they have a plague of rats, illustrated by various rats terrorizing the townsfolk and convinces them to pay for Keith, the pied piper, to lead them outside of the town. Outside the town, the rats are revealed to be sentient and literate, working with Keith and Maurice to defraud towns.

They are heading to the town of Bad Blintz next which suffers from a lack of food and where rat catchers have been unable to find the reason of the disappearing food. Trying to infiltrate the tunnels under the city, the rats notice that there are no local rats despite traces of them. They find a trap that captures rats alive and Darktan, their leader, is trapped inside. Meanwhile, Maurice has entered the mayor’s house and when Keith tries to find him, they meet the mayor’s daughter, Malicia, who quickly deduces – after seeing tap-dancing rat Sardines – that they are behind the recent plague of rats in nearby towns and enlists them to help discover the reason behind the city’s food shortage.

Their quest leads them to the local rat catchers headquarters where they find a secret passage to the basement filled with food. They also find Darktan and the other rats coming from the tunnels with the trap they found. Maurice correctly guesses that the rat catchers are trying to catch the rats alive to use them for entertainment, pitting dogs in rings with rats and betting on how fast they are killed. The rat catchers catch Sardines and use him for the ring but he is rescued by the others.

Poisoning the food with laxatives, Maurice, Keith and Malicia manage to force the rat catchers to admit that they created a rat king when eight rats they left in a bucket got their tails knotted and developed an evil sentience, capable of controlling other rats. Maurice flees from the rat king while Keith and Malicia head to the woods to find the real pied piper and steal his magical flute, the only instrument known to kill a rat king. Meanwhile, the Big Boss, revealed to be the rat king in a pile of human clothes, has captured Peaches, one of the rats, and Dangerous Beans, the group’s spiritual leader, tries to rescue her. Confronting the rat king in the rat catchers’ office, Maurice appears and hits him with the money they swindled, allowing him to escape with the two rats.

In the woods, Keith and Malicia attempt to steal the flute from the sleeping piper but he wakes up and tries to kill them by forcing them to enter the burning oven. They are saved when the wind-up toy mouse Malicia previously took from Darktan distracts him long enough to lose the flute, allowing them to run back to town with the flute.

Meanwhile, Maurice and the rats try to flee the city but are stopped by the rat king who summons dozens of rats from all directions to make himself stronger. Maurice runs into the woods to find the two humans while the rats are attempting to resist the rat king’s call to merge with him. Keith and Malicia return and after some initial hurdles, he manages to play the flute correctly to beguile the rats away from the rat king’s influence until only the king itself remains. The rat king uses the last of his power to freeze everyone in place but Dangerous Beans manages to break free, defying him again.

The rat king then telepathically snaps his neck. Laying dying, Dangerous Beans reminds Maurice to be a cat and he uses his bottled up instincts to attack and kill the rat king, mortally wounding himself in the process. When Death and the Death of Rats arrive to take Dangerous Beans and one of Maurice’s lives, he successfully trades one of his lives for Dangerous Beans’ life, allowing both of them to wake up. Malicia and Keith, also start a relationship as they developed feelings for each other over the course of their adventure.

With the rat king defeated and the food given back to the townspeople, the town and the rats come to an agreement. The rats get to live in the middle of town and Bad Blintz becomes a tourist attraction with its talking rats, including a job for Keith as the town’s official piper.