Even though I started telling myself "prepare to meet a lot of kids" after buying the tickets, I was taken aback when I walked into the theater 15 minutes before the movie opened. Simply put, I am the oldest unmarried person and the youngest adult. Hmm... The next time I watch the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, I'm sure it'll still be like this, and I'll be thicker-skinned!
Since this is Luc Besson's first 3D animation + live-action film, the first thing I noticed, and the first thing that the trailer attracted me, was its technology. The 3D animation part is produced by a studio called BUF. It seems that I have never heard of it before, but from this film, it seems that the technical force is very strong. The character modeling is very commendable, there is absolutely no plastic human effect of Japanese CG, and it is not exaggerated like American movies. Although the characters have long ears, they look very natural, especially the freckled face of the princess is very cute, I just want to touch it with my hands when it is close-up... (Okay, I know I'm very similar to sitting in a movie theater like that A strange slut...).
However, no matter how beautiful an actor is, if he can't act, he is nothing but a vase. The 3D animation part in the first half feels messy, and the live-action part, every child will like it, so I won't say anything. Since the live-action part has done a lot of foreshadowing, it seems that the director wants the audience to enter the world of the Mininoids with the protagonist as soon as possible, but as an adult audience, I think Arthur's portrayal of the characters is not enough. We can roughly tell that Arthur is a brave kid, the princess is rude, and the king is the kind and confused type, but that's it, after 10 minutes of Star Wars-style fighting, Arthur is in company with the princess and the prince. Off to an adventure? The character of the CG character hasn't had much chance to be shown, especially the princess scene is almost taken away by the funny prince, so I still feel that Arthur is going on an adventure with a CG character rather than a princess of a mysterious nation.
This situation improved in the second half, but the progression of the plot still gave people a sense of abruptness. But anyway, my sense of substitution as an audience has finally been mobilized. The ending part is one of the best of any PG and below movie I've seen, and it's very cleverly done. But overall, the film's efforts to tell a story have failed.
I think Luc Besson could have told the story better if he had given him an extra hour. His films, even in their most tense moments, need to give the actors room for the best portrayals of characters like Nikita and Leon the Killer, but as a movie for kids, the two-and-a-half hour length would be unimaginable. Perhaps in the style of Luc Besson, making such a film will only get a lot of negative comments - he is used to telling too many things in the film, which is simply not something that this market-oriented film can carry.
On the other hand, there are obvious traces of Hollywood or McDonald's in the film. I think that's deadly for French cinema, which has always been known for its cultural flair and genuine humour. From the first half of the aerial combat, which is similar to Star Wars, but can hardly see anything, to the later Hip-hop-style fights, it can be seen that Luc Besson tried to incorporate some popular, "cool" elements, but he couldn't make them well. They are integrated into their own films, and the rhythm and picture are out of place, and this, at least in the past few years, American animation has done much more successfully. Those American jokes seemed to squeak the audience, and I just giggled politely, but it was the sporadic European cleverness that really made me laugh.
It is these cleverness that make me believe that Uncle Luc Besson is still imaginative. BUF is a testament to Europe's technological prowess. Movies like Elephants Dream can be made by amateurs, and there seems to be little reason why Europe can't make animated films with its own characteristics and even rival American films. After being exhausted by Pixar's cookie-cutter jokes, I'd much rather see imaginative animated films in Europe. Arthur and the Invisibles wasn't a success, but it would be a good start if future European animated films didn't embrace American tastes, but blazed a new path of their own.
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