Despite the fact it took me more than a moment to get over the fact that that's MADONNA chatting up Freddie Highmore, a 10 year old kid wouldn't know that...so I can forgive the odd casting choice for Princess Selenia (though there are at least a dozen actresses working today with cuter voices than hers...anyway...) Okay, so before I hit PLAY on this one I "zenned" myself into the mindset of a ten year old kid, and guess what, I actually found heaps to enjoy in this film from the not so tranquil mind of Luc Besson.
4.9 rating...tsk tsk...proves there's not enough kids allowed to use the PC i reckon. Or not enough adults with healthy inner children...whatever. Any film that can provoke emotions in me is a winner in my books, and this one certainly is no exception. My heart tore just a little bit when Freddie Highmore's Arthur was lamenting the absence of his parents on his birthday. I developed a healthy kids-flick hatred for the live action villain of the land developer or whatever, when he kicked Arthur's toy car down the drain I found myself mentally flipping him the bird, and knew with a sense of gleeful satisfaction that coz it WAS a kids movie, he'd get what's coming to him in the end! And what a stunningly well-crafted and realised world of the Minimoys...wow! A lot of love and thought and care went into the creation of this world, with only a scant few annoying characters (Beta-whatever-your-name-was, I'm lookin at you, you freakin little troll doll!) As an adult I was a little distracted by the celebrity voices in the English version because I of course closed my eyes for a split second and could see the actors, in sweats and five-o'clock shadows, reading the lines from a script into a microphone in a recording studio while sucking on mugs of coffee. But kids will not be distracted by it, and since they technically are the audience this is aimed at, i got over that distraction pretty quick. The Snoop cameo was so out of place I laughed but the dance/fight on the turntables was pretty cool. The transitions between live action and the Minimoy world were done really well I thought (side note: water and fire used to be two of the hardest things to realistically create with CGI effects, but apparently we're past that, coz in this it all looks fantastic).
4.9 rating...tsk tsk...proves there's not enough kids allowed to use the PC i reckon. Or not enough adults with healthy inner children...whatever. Any film that can provoke emotions in me is a winner in my books, and this one certainly is no exception. My heart tore just a little bit when Freddie Highmore's Arthur was lamenting the absence of his parents on his birthday. I developed a healthy kids-flick hatred for the live action villain of the land developer or whatever, when he kicked Arthur's toy car down the drain I found myself mentally flipping him the bird, and knew with a sense of gleeful satisfaction that coz it WAS a kids movie, he'd get what's coming to him in the end! And what a stunningly well-crafted and realised world of the Minimoys...wow! A lot of love and thought and care went into the creation of this world, with only a scant few annoying characters (Beta-whatever-your-name-was, I'm lookin at you, you freakin little troll doll!) As an adult I was a little distracted by the celebrity voices in the English version because I of course closed my eyes for a split second and could see the actors, in sweats and five-o'clock shadows, reading the lines from a script into a microphone in a recording studio while sucking on mugs of coffee. But kids will not be distracted by it, and since they technically are the audience this is aimed at, i got over that distraction pretty quick. The Snoop cameo was so out of place I laughed but the dance/fight on the turntables was pretty cool. The transitions between live action and the Minimoy world were done really well I thought (side note: water and fire used to be two of the hardest things to realistically create with CGI effects, but apparently we're past that, coz in this it all looks fantastic).