A Disney Holocaust

Rating: 4/10 (8 March 2017)

I expected to like this movie. I love foreign movies and when I watched the trailer it seemed to have so much promise. Unfortunately, the movie did not live up to expectations. There are quite a few reviews for it that go into detail, so I'll be succinct.
Imagine an older animated Disney movie. The protagonist is a skinny mouse with an over-the-top, goofball personality. He somehow gets away with all manner of pranks that no one would ever accept in the real world. (By the way, I'm a fan of pranks and awkward humor, but his behavior was both wince-inducing and required too much suspension of disbelief).
He has a straight-laced sidekick, who is a shorter mouse; a bit chubby and dour. And of course, we need to add in the female love-interest mouse who does nothing more than bat her eyelashes at the skinny mouse. He somehow wins her over with his crazy antics.
Oh, no, here come the bad guys! (Cue dramatic music). Let's make them rats. These rats are over-the-top bad guys, but also quite stupid. Imagine them saying "Huh?" a lot at the zany hijinks of our protagonist mouse.
That's essentially what this movie is, except with human actors. As a vintage Disney animation it may have worked ⎯ although I'm not sure how well a typical young Disney audience would receive the Holocaust.
This is one of those films where it was a bad idea for one person to have such free reign on the whole project. Roberto Benigni directed, co-wrote, and starred in Life Is Beautiful. Sometimes one person can do all of that well (e.g., Clint Eastwood or Woody Allan, occasionally). Other times you get a movie that's little more than a vanity vehicle, which this one seems to be.