Was 2008 the year of the rodent, cinematically speaking, or what? There was the warrior mouse Reepicheep of Prince Caspian, the crazy hamster of Bolt, the bug-eyed guinea pig of Bedtime Stories (I may be stretching the definition of rodent a tad, I admit), the little blue mouse named Morton in Horton Hears a Who!, and my most favorite rodent of 2008, Despereaux.

Despereaux is not just a mouse, however. Though of the rodent persuasion, he is a gentleman. And he is the star of one of the most luminous animated movies I've ever see, The Tale of Despereaux, new on DVD next week.

Of the many things to embrace in this charming movie, the animation is what stands out for me. It is luminous in a way that computer cartoonery rarely achieves, eschewing photo-realism for the stylized yet organic look of the kind of illustration we more typically find in children's storybooks. I haven't had my breath taken away merely by the look of an animated movie like this since 1991's Beauty and the Beast, when computer animation itself was just starting to show us what it could do, and how it could be used in the furtherance of storytelling. There's a feeling of something like revelation to Despereaux, too, in how the beauty and poignancy of a simple drawing can deepen your love for a character. Something as perfectly ordinary as the moistness of Despereaux's pink little mouse nose makes him huggably real.

The only bonus feature on the new DVD -- from Universal Pictures Home Entertainment -- of interest to grownup fans is a brief making-of featurette (the other stuff is for the kiddies, games, interactive maps and the like). And it is lovely to hear producers and animators make reference to canvases by Vermeer, Bruegel, and Bosch to describe the inspiration for their film. "We hoped that it would be possible," says Gary Ross, screenwriter and producer, "to do with light in CG what painting had done for centuries." And they achieved that, magnificently. The movie is almost as beautiful on my HDTV -- not even in Blu-ray, just regular ol' DVD -- as it was projected onto a big screen. Fans of animation as a technique will not want to miss this movie if they want to see how resplendent computer animation can be.

But of course it's perfectly lovely as a story, too, as little Despereaux (the voice of Matthew Broderick) fights the forces of mousy conformity in his quest for honor, adventure, and other gentlemanly ends, and evinces resilience and fortitude in the face of some very awful prospects. He's a thoroughly inspiring little creature, a charming one you won't soon forget.

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MaryAnn Johanson, not a frakkin' Cylon (email me)