The Highway Rat

The BBC's Christmas animation treat is The Highway Rat. Julia Donaldson's buck toothed rodent on a horse whose life is one long feast. Younger folks will certainly like it as it follows on the footsteps of other Donaldson books that have been adapted for animation during the festive period.

With his sword The Highway Rat steals sweets, chocolates, cakes and pastries. 'Give me your sweets and your lollies! Give me your toffees and chews!'

Life is good for The Highway Rat, he even steals hay from his horse but the other animals in the forest are suffering and getting thinner as the rat gets fat.

This is another sweet animated tale narrated by Rob Brydon with David Tennant voicing the Highway Rat. It has an anti obesity message, eat in moderation.

The Highway Rat always seems to be disappointed that food that looks like confectionary turns out to be vegetables, fruits or nuts. Food that is actually good for you is a no-no but he still steals it.

Well he is a rat, after all, so we ought to expect him too be a bit of a terror. He sits astride his horse doing his own version of Dick Turpin - only maybe that should be "Nick" as he usually, and sometimes quite threateningly, steals the food from the mouths of just about everyone he encounters. He thinks his luck is truly in when he encounters a duck, but she's no fool. She tells him of a place were there are cakes and chocolates galore and his greed soon gets the better of his common sense with rather parable-esque consequences for just about everyone. It's the horse that steals this for me, but the other characters each have their part to play in demonstrating the merits of share and share alike, especially when faced with a bully. It's quite funny at times, and the style of animation is detailed and engaging - if perhaps just a little linear. This is enjoyable family fayre that effortlessly passes half an hour without labouring the points it's quite powerfully making.

In the style of the old stop motion claymation animations we have the use of plasticine to build the main characters which are then digitized to produce the classic stop motion movement, and 3-D character style. Great texture, voicing, poetic dialogue & music. On top of that it's a moralistic tale that stealing is not good. Some of the backgrounds were 3-D, but not all and the lack of naturalistic movement in the background kept it from a nine star.

The Highway Rat (2017) -

I'm not sure that the punishment really fit the crime at the end of this one and I don't know if I really liked the story as a whole either. I felt that the mean little rat deserved more of a comeuppance and that the build up was too repetitive. I got the message, he stole from people, don't hammer it home so much!

Actually, I'd like the BBC to be more selective about the books that they turn in to films, because a lot of the ones that they have made lately seem to been a vague attempt to cash in on the success of 'The Gruffalo' (2009), with not many of them delivering that same great recipe that made 'The Gruffalo' and it's sequel 'The Gruffalo's Child' (2011) work so well.

So much so, there wasn't much to say about this one. The animation was good, David Tennant's voice was a bit annoying, but the story didn't really give anything new or exciting.

442.39/1000.

Our boys love this story, they loved the book but the animation just adds so much!! Wonderful voice work and the tiny details are fantastic