Pratchett books always have a significant amount of meta subtext, and whilst The Amazing Maurice is aimed at a younger audience than most Discworld stories, from memory it still has a lot of deliberate quirks that really only make sense in a written context. For example, every chapter starts with a preface from a different, fictional book; a fictional book that is both important to the characters in the actual story and the excerpts of which foreshadow the events of the upcoming chapter. It's a clever literary device, but not something that I would expect to see make it to the screen.

As a result, every Discworld adaptation has a choice to make:stick as closely to the source material as possible, or try to remain faithful whilst modifying the source to the medium. As someone who has performed in plays of Discworld books that fall into both camps (and as someone who has watched every adaptation) I think the latter is pretty much always the better move. The Amazing Maurice takes the former path.

To be fair, they've come up with some fun and novel ways to do that; ways which make specific sense for this book, this story. As a result, I think it almost works, but even with each reveal, the fourth wall breaks and meta-narrator-character never quite clicked.

Still, the film feels very faithful to the original story as well, (as I say, it's been a while) and so, quirks aside, it remains entertaining. Throw on top an excellent cast (Hugh Laurie? David Tennant? Emilia Clarke? Yes please!) and some stylised but effective animation, and whilst it definitely feels a little budget at times, it does hold together very nicely. Maurice is an interesting central character; the Rat King is a great villain (and still a favourite piece of British folklore); and the Pied Piper is a classic Pratchett moment of "this hero is really quite twisted, what are we doing here".

So if you ignore some slightly simplistic pacing (this is a kids book/film) and the slight lack of meaty humour (Pratchett is always better at slow-build, narrative jokes, rather than witty zingers) then there's plenty entertaining here. If you're a Pratchett/Discworld fan, then there's plenty of Easter Eggs (Rincewind cameo!) to watch out for, and the Grim Squeaker gets a direct role (as well he should!), which automatically earns the show points. I think some of the twists could have been better set up (e.g. it would have made a lot more sense for the opening to show us the whole nine-lives schtick, and Maurice's arc is a little flat in that he never really has a villainous moment to need redemption), but it's a fun romp that anyone would enjoy.