![]() Life is good, but he does suffer from neglect by his parents, wage slaves in a distant city. Young Arthur (Freddie Highmore of “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”) lives on a Connecticut homestead with his grandmother (Mia Farrow) and pet dog. This does avoid head-to-head competition with “Charlotte’s Web,” though, so perhaps the film will have the playing field more to itself.īesson’s story is based on his own children’s book, “Arthur and the Minimoys,” which he adapted in a screenplay written with visual artist Celine Garcia. The decision by MGM and the Weinsteins to move the national release of “Arthur” to today is odd because it will miss the holidays, when the film’s biggest audience is out of school. The film also will supply the answer at some future date to the barroom challenge: What 2006 movie starred Madonna, David Bowie and Snoop Dogg? The trick is that these singer-actors do not appear in this movie but perform the voices of several of the tiny CG beings who live in the hero’s backyard. The result isn’t an unpalatable pudding but rather a fair-to-middling children’s film that is half CG animation and half live action.Īdults might shake their heads at the blatant borrowings ranging from the King Arthur legend and “The Wizard of Oz” to the 1980s comedy “Honey, I Shrunk the Kids,” but many youngsters will enjoy the ride. ![]() See also my longer review at cinematical.FOR HIS CHILDREN’S fantasy “Arthur and the Invisibles,” writer-director Luc Besson appears to have grabbed bits of this and that from a number of fairy tales, tossed them into a blender and hoped for a family adventure. (This review also appeared in the Las Vegas Weekly. These films don't have the perfect polish of Disney and other high profile family entertainments, but there's something refreshing about coloring out of the lines. If Arthur and the Invisibles had been all live-action, it could be compared with kooky, scrappy and slightly off-key films like The 5000 Fingers of Dr. That technology involves drinking straws, which echoes the kind of low-rent ingenuity at work here. But first he must join Princess Selenia (voiced by Madonna) and her baby brother Betameche (voiced by Jimmy Fallon) in defeating resident bad guy Maltazard (voiced, in a very cool performance, by David Bowie), who plans to flood the Minimoy nation using technology that Arthur has unwittingly provided. So Arthur visits the land of the tiny yard-dwelling Minimoys, shrinking and becoming a spiky-haired CGI creature, to enlist their help. The film begins with a live-action sequence: Arthur (Freddie Highmore) and his grandmother (Mia Farrow) are about to lose their farm unless Arthur can find the rubies his absent, explorer grandfather hid in the yard. (His voice cast, which includes Robert De Niro, Harvey Keitel, Chazz Palminteri, Emilio Estevez, Snoop Dogg and Anthony Anderson, clearly doesn't mind joining him.) This is no committee-engineered product designed to boost first-quarter profits Besson actually wants to be here. ![]() The difference between Arthur and the Invisibles and its more sophisticated cousins is that, rather than desperately trying to please its fickle audience and teach them a lesson at the same time, it leaves the distinct impression that it's out to have fun. And the screenplay shamelessly borrows ideas from King Arthur, Harry Potter and a dozen other pop culture sources. 2007PG1h 53mchildrendramaadventuremusicalfantasy The Golden Compass. During moments of calm, the characters chatter too much, and plot details can get lost. 2007UR1h 34mchildrenfantasyanimated August Rush. The action sequences move too fast, perhaps in an effort to cover up the film's lack of smoothness. It apparently cost a bundle, and that money is nowhere to be seen on screen. The film certainly has its share of problems. Still, we're not talking Hayao Miyazaki here. Unlike the soulless, professionally polished CGI-animated kids' movies that dominated 2006 ( Over the Hedge, The Ant Bully, Cars, Barnyard, Flushed Away), it has the feel of human handprints on it, as if actual people made it. Luc Besson's new Arthur and the Invisibles succeeds because it has the nerve to show up half-assed, like a misshapen factory reject. Book Review: Cult Filmmakers: 50 Movie Mavericks You Need to Know.Book Review: Sam Wasson's The Big Goodbye: Chinatown and the Last Years of Hollywood. ![]() Book Reviews - Guillermo Del Toro: The Iconic Filmmaker and His Work & The Unofficial Hocus Pocus Cookbook.Book Review: Escape Into Meaning: Essays on Superman, Public Benches, and Other Obsessions.The 2022 San Francisco Bay Area Film Critics Circle Awards.Book Review: Once Upon a Rind In Hollywood.Peter Nicks on Stephen Curry: Underrated Arthur and the Invisibles is a film directed by Luc Besson with Animation, Freddie Highmore, Mia Farrow, Penny Balfour.Book Review: Clint Eastwood: The Iconic Filmmaker and His Work.
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