arthur and the invisibles

Rating:	★
Category:	Movies
Genre:	Science Fiction & Fantasy

the boyfriend was teasing me for dragging him to a free movie screening of arthur and the invisibles. but a free movie is a free movie, and neither of us were particularly rich that day so it's probably a good thing the french film festival was ongoing.

arthur was shown in commercial cinemas a few months ago. i remembered seeing the posters showing the CG animation: cute, but nothing spectacular, really. reviews of the movie said it was disappointing, at the very least, but i didn't really mind; a free movie is a free movie.

arthur and the invisibles (or arthur and the minimoys) was a part-live action, part-computer animated film. the plot was about a boy, arthur, who discovered his missing grandfather's stories of a race of tiny people were actually true. in fact, the minimoys were living within their property (which is on the danger of being turned over to another man who wanted the place demolished). arthur found a way to get into the land of the minimoys in order to obtain the rubies given to his grandfather, which would be enough payment to save their land. when he got there, he was tasked to defeat evil malthazard, after pulling a mystic sword from a stone.

one problem of the movie was the american dialogue: the delivery of the lines in the animated sequences were just too fast. however, it seemed this was because the original dubbing of the film was french, and the animated sequences had the characters' mouths set to move along the french dialogue. apparently, french sentences tend to be shorter than their english counterpart. still, the speed of the delivery of the lines were rather disorienting.

a bigger problem of the movie was suspension of disbelief. at one point in the movie, i ended up looking at the boyfriend and saying, "what the fuck?" after a particularly unbelievable sequence. he had a similar facial expression. after the film, he asked me if the movie's intended audience - kids - could appreciate it. while the computer animation might pique some kid's attention, we both agreed that the movie seemed to be treating kids like they were stupid.

many of the movie elements were so derivative (daryl pointed out how "evil m" sounded so voldemort, plus the pulling the sword out of the stone bit was too predictable for a movie whose main character is named arthur), and some aspects of the movie reeks of wtf-ness (teleporting african tribesmen with european table manners! the bee-gees staying alive playing in a movie set in the 60s! wow!).

a lot of criticism has been made on the 10-year old arthur falling in love with a 1000-year old (in minimoy years) princess; while the movie explicitly stated that 10 human years is roughly equivalent to 1000 minimoy years, the minimoy princess and her younger brother definitely did not act like they were prepubescent kids (there were sequences in the fantasy counterpart of a bar where they seem to have drunk what in human terms to be alcoholic drinks).

the only high point of the movie for us was watching the credits. the princess was voiced by madonna. (whoa!) malthazard was voiced by david bowie. (whoa!) being bowie-the-movie-actor fanboys (we loved him playing nikola tesla in the prestige), daryl and i were surprised that he voiced the main villain. you'd think we'd realize it sooner, huh? so remembering the scene where the princess was alone in confronting the villain gave us a mini-brain aneurysm: it was madonna vs. bowie! and bowie out-madonna'ed madonna.

unfortunately, bowie's villain used a deathtrap.

but like i said, a free movie is a free movie, so i shouldn't be complaining. but i definitely would be complaining a lot if i paid to watch that thing.