Arthur and the Minimoys - Directed by Luc Besson
Mixed feelings on this one. It seems to me that Mr Besson couldn't make up his mind whether to make a kids film or a satirical adults film that looks like a kids film. Generic plot devices and snappy one liners are rife throughout the production. An all star cast stars or provides the voices for the Minimoys, David Bowie, Madonna, Robert De Niro, Snoop Dogg. Harvey Keitel, Emilio Estevez and Mia Farrow plays Arthurs grandmother.
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The film was budgeted at US$86 million. By Boxing Day, Arthur earned over US$20 million in France alone. While in general, it was well received by the international public and critic, it failed in the US.
In the United States, the movie's Los Angeles run garnered 20% positive reviews at the critics-aggregate site RottenTomatoes.com.[4] Los Angeles Times reviewer Alex Chun wrote that, "Director Luc Besson admits he knew nothing about animation before he started this project, and it shows".[5] Variety's Robert Koehler called it "alienating and dislikable" and specifically noted that, "Having African-American thesps Snoop Dogg and Anthony Anderson voice creatures that are basically humanoid monkeys shows poor taste". Many found it derivative of sources ranging from King Arthur's sword-in-the-stone to the films The Dark Crystal and The Ant Bully, which itself was based on a children's book written three years before Besson's. "It all simply looks as if [conceptual artist Patrice] Garcia and Besson couldn't decide on any one thing to copy", said Frank Lovece of Film Journal International, "so they copied them all". Lovece also noted that, "the whole thing gets seriously creepy when [the animated versions of] the grown-up, pinup-beauty princess and the 10-year-old boy fall for each other. Mary Kay Letourneau comes uncomfortably to mind".
Besson, in a May 2007 interview, blamed American distributor The Weinstein Company for the film's poor critical reception in the U.S., saying "Why the critics didn't like Arthur was because [Weinstein] changed so much of the film and tried to pretend the film was American. ... This was the only country where the film was changed. The rest of the world has the same film as France".
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Arthur and the Minimoys - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Watched it once, don't want to watch it again.
It's a lavish production and spectacular but ultimately pointless.