Micmacs (2009)

Frantic mise-en-scene and an energetic cast only emphasis the cartoon-thin plot of this excruciatingly boring vehicle. Caper movies, thrillers, revenge pics, even comedies – and Micmacs has elements of all these – only succeed when things go wrong. That's the paradox that Jeunet doesn't understand, at least in the first hour (which feels like two) and was enough for me.

Be aware of reviewers' and viewers' opinions on this one: it's hard to come and out criticize a foreign movie with real heart when so much Hollywood crap is out there. But if you go to see The Losers you know what you're going to get. When you take the time or money to see something like Micmacs, you're taking a gamble, and you may not want to admit you were bored with a plot that's just a shaggy dog story, and geared for a lower mentality than the average Hollywood action pic.

Micmacs won't make you angry (unless you count your money and time carefully) but it is shockingly inadequate and disappointing. At the very least, wait for the DVD. If you're an adult who wants something clever or entertaining you will be appalled at this excuse for a feature film. The story of the weakest Pixar or Dreamworks animated movie is stronger than this -- and the only basis for comparison are other cartoons. In feel and artistic scope the movie should have been a short.

Fmovies: Here's the plot: as a kid, this guy's father was killed in North Africa by a landmine made by one armaments manufacturer. His poor widowed mother tries her best to raise him, and does, but in relative poverty. Then, as a young man, he is shot in the head with a bullet made by another armaments manufacturer. Recovering, and living on the streets as a result of carrying the bullet around with him in his brain, ready to kill him at any minute, in a moment of seeming realization he decides that his purpose in this possibly-short life is to take REVENGE on these armaments manufacturers, and in so doing put an end to them being able to supply weapons of war forever.

You can visualize the plot in your head. After all, you've seen variants of this "angry vigilante takes matters into his own hands and exacts justice" on screen a hundred times. OK, maybe a couple of dozen times. In the in-your-head version, you were probably expecting someone like Steven Seagall or Sylvester Stallone playing the young man, if they hadn't gotten so old and fat and all, and if their box office appeal hadn't tanked. You're probably imagining all the glorious mayhem, death, and carnage -- with lots of explosions thrown in, of course, because it's about arms dealers, after all.

Now imagine this plot written and filmed by the guy who made "Amélie" and "Delicatessen" and "The City Of Lost Children." As a kind of quirky surrealist comedy. That's "Micmacs à tire-larigot," by Jean-Pierre Jeunet, released in the US as "Micmacs." Because it's a Jeunet film, and his films pretty much define "ensemble casts," he has rounded up the usual suspects, and supplemented them with Danny Boon in the lead and André Dussollier as one of the arms dealers. Because it's a Jeunet film, expect amazing but subtle visuals. "Amélie," after all, was the most CGI-maniuplated film in history when it was released. There was hardly a single frame that had not had its colors changed and other things done to it to put on screen the vision Jeunet saw in *his* head. My bet is that "Micmacs" beats "Amélie's" record.

And it's a hoot. In a quirky, French way, that is. Danny Boon is tremendous, aided in his plot by an incredibly sweet group of misfits and a lot of recycled junk. Not to be missed if you're a fan of Jeunet's work.

Jean-Pierre Jeunet loves the hell out of being a filmmaker. By this I mean you can just see the how much he enjoys doing everything that a director with a keen visual sense and imagination and admiration for his actors loves doing. Even when I've only somewhat loved his films (Amelie and Alien 4), you can still see that he's working his own kind of world into the medium, a vision that is comparable to others but not really like anyone else in the humor, the directness of the compositions and lighting, the surreal touches and flamboyant qualities of the characters, and how fantastical everything is. Micmacs is no exception, but the key here is that it finds him back in the crazy-great terrain of his early films; I don't think I've been this excited about a project he's done since City of Lost Children. And while this time Micmacs takes place in the 'real' world, I felt like I couldn't be anywhere else except in a Jeunet picture, right from the first surprise explosion onward.

It's a tale of outcasts getting payback, or rather one in a group of them who has very good reason to. At the start of the story Bazil (Dany Boon) doesn't have much, as his family sent him away as a kid after his father died unexpectedly from a land mine explosion by a dastardly weapons manufacturer. But when he's shot by a stray bullet that was made by the same company that killed his father (and the bullet, which hits him in the head but somehow he's saved in the nick of time, stays in his brain), he's let go from his job at the video store from being, you know, presumed dead, and he can't get another work anywhere else. But he catches the eye(s) of a group of misfits and other homeless folks living at a junkyard; we even see their billboards... or perhaps this is just an in-joke. Are they they Micmacs a tire-larigot as a real group, or just... well, you can decide.

What we do know is that Bazil keeps on spying on the nefarious businessmen who were responsible for all of his misery, and then some as weapons manufacturers who deal to any buyers who will pay up. He has some tricky ways of doing it, like microphones and just common snooping, though when the others in the Micmacs group - including Francesse (Jeunet regular Dominique Pinon), a ex-cannonball man with a once world record, Tambouille (Yolande Moreau) who is the mother figure of the group, and Caoutchouc (Julie Ferrier) who is a cheery contortionist - find out his plans, they tell him he'll either do it alone, or altogether with the group. They plan their revenge, but not in the usual fashion of typical violence. For these war-mongers and arms dealers they have an intricate plot worthy of Ocean's Eleven: get the two dealers facing off one another (one of which the steely eyed Nicolas Thibault played by André Dussollier with underlying lunacy to him with his prized "objects" like Marilyn Monroe's molar). It's a game of pranksters, but all serious stuff deep down.

I loved practically every moment of this film, as Jeunet engineers it as a madcap comedy with twists and turns every step of the way. He doesn't forget the nature of the crimes these two villains have perpetrated, but then these become mostly foils for him. Micmacs works its wonders like a cartoon with a touch of a carnival or the circus, or for that matter a silent movie comedy where physical comedy becomes a marvel to watch. Just seeing Pinon when he does his 'cannonball' bit, how it backfires from the unreliability of the s

Micmacs fmovies. French director Jean-Pierre Jeunet marks his return to the film world this weekend with Micmacs. For those of you unfamiliar with Jeunet's previous works, he is probably most known for his sugary goodness of a film that is Amélie. With Micmacs, Jeunet proves that he has not lost his touch.

We begin the film with a group of men in the desert. Each man is dressed in his best bomb-squad attire and is combing a strip of sand for landmines to diffuse. We focus on one man as he carefully locates and unearths a single mine. Just as he begins to diffuse it we are treated to a long shot of all of the men working as our friend blows up. The film zips away from this scene to the wife and son of the departed as they are informed of his death. Through several jump cuts, we are able to see that this event will affect the young boy's entire life. We then fast-forward to a small video rental store in modern day France. Bazil (Dany Boon), the young boy we previously met, is now fully grown and works at the video store. Bazil is presented as a simple and somewhat happy man with a love of film. He amorously recites the lines of the film he watches matching the cadence perfectly. At the same time, a high-speed car chase spills over into his world. As the chase passes by the video store, Bazil runs out to see the commotion. Just as he exits the store, a stray bullet flies out from the action movie taking place outside and catches him in the head, wounding, but not killing him. He is transported to a hospital where the doctor decides that he does not feel like chancing the surgery and leaves the bullet in Bazil's head.

As Bazil attempts to return to his life, he finds that everything has moved on without him. His apartment has been rented to someone new and his job has been giving to a cute young girl who gives him the bullet casing that was found in the street, remnants of the moment that changed everything. Bazil attempts to live a normal life, panhandling in order to get by. He is soon taken in by a group of eccentrics that will act as his family. While gathering junk he notices a building that bears the same symbol that was on the bullet casing. He then looks across the street and sees the symbol that was on the landmine that killed his father. The rest of the film then follows Bazil and his group as they seek to take down both companies.

The first thing that must be said about this film is how beautiful it is. Jeunet proves that a great filmmaker truly is an artist as each shot is more beautiful than the next. The viewer is never aware of just how fast the film often moves. Despite numerous jump cuts, a signature of Jeunet, the film feels very smooth, somehow avoiding the feeling that the film was edited by a child with ADD on a sugar high that often occurs with this technique. However, the film does have its flaws.

There is little character development throughout the film. The most well developed character, no surprise, is Bazil. The peripheral characters all seem to be one note jokes that are simply there to help both the story and Bazil move forward. I can honestly say that I cannot name any of the other characters in the movie, often referring to them as The Mother Figure, The Bendy Chick and That Human Cannonball Guy just to name a few. Of the eccentric group that Bazil runs with, each one has his own quirk with little to no development past that. The viewer is expected to accept these quirks and not dig any deeper into the characters. There truly is no fully three-dimensional character in the film

Micmacs a tire-larigot (2009); Directed by: Jean-Pierre Jeunet; Starring: Dany Boon, Julie Ferrier, André Dussolier, Dominque Pinon et al.

The announcement that Jean-Pierre Jeunet was making a new film made me happy and after seeing it I am even happier. Mr. Jeunet has delivered some weird, but exquisite films and this one is no exception. It is like a crossover between his earlier films with Marc Caro and his later ones. There are the whacky characters with weird hobbies from his earlier work, but it's not as dark as those. It actually has a bright atmosphere, like "Amélie".

In the film's opening we see a soldier failing to disarm a mine. Then follows a cut to some apartment in Paris where a phone rings. Some boy's mother picks it up and starts crying, while we're watching the boy's face sadden. Jeunet doesn't need any dialogue to convey what has happened. We move forwards in time and we see the now grown up boy, named Bazil (Dany Boon), working in a video store, watching a classic film. Outside a chase is going on, shots are fired and a pistol falls. Bazil stands up to watch this scene unfold, when he's hit by a bullet. The camera moves in on the TV screen and when that film ends, the Warner Brothers logo appears and "Micmacs" starts. The opening credits remain in the black and white of the finished film and a classic Max Steiner score plays gloriously over the credits, which was great to see once more on the silver screen. In these first minutes alone we already witnessed some of the most creative film-making of the decade. Jeunet has always been a very visual filmmaker and this prologue alone proves that he masters the art of visual storytelling. There's no need for dialogue. After the titles we see a doctor deciding Bazil's faith. Getting the bullet out of his head can permanently paralyze him and leaving it in can cause death at any moment. A coin decides for the latter option. At home he's in for a surprise though: his apartment has been rented out and his job has been taken. Luckily he can get his hat back from some neighboring kids, but that's about all he has left. He decides to earn money by performing on the streets, where he is picked up by Placard. He takes him to a scrap yard where he lives alongside other outcasts of society. These are all weird characters in the best Jeunet fashion. There is Tambouille, who takes care of them like a mother. There's Calculette, the daughter of a carpenter and a sowing lady, who can measure up anything and anyone with one look. There's Petit Pierre, who makes strange puppets from old materials (like a dancing dress). Then there's a person obsessed with his Guinness Book of Records entry for fastest living cannonball, Fracasse. Last but not least, there's the snake lady named Caoutchouc, who can assume all sorts of unnatural stances. And let's not forget Remington, who is part of the gang too. Their little society collects junk, making it into all sorts of sellable things, thus giving it a second life.

On a day though, Bazil finds the weapon manufacturers responsible for making the landmine which killed his father and the bullet which struck him. He decides to get his revenge, but only with the help of the unique talents of his comrades. His plan is weirder than you could possibly imagine. It basically involves getting the two manufacturers to destroy each other. How this is done is truly unique and very funny. They gradually turn up the heat and start irritating both in the n

The unfortunate well-meaning Frenchman Bazil (Dany Boon) finds himself wishing ill upon wealthy industrialists Nicholas Thibault de Fenouillet (André Doussillier) and Francois Marconi (Nicolas Marié), the heads of two corrupt artillery corporations, who are responsible for both the tragic death of his father when Bazil was a boy, and the silver bullet lodged in his head and set to explode at any moment. Assisted by an abnormally-skilled gang of other military victims, Bazil endeavours to bring down the two perpetrators and strike a damaging blow at the entire industry.

The aforementioned plot could potentially deliver a grim and bloodthirsty heist thriller, but French director Jean-Pierre Jeunet has other intentions. The opening scene in which the little boy Bazil (here played by the young Noé Boon) witnesses his father being blown to pieces amongst the familiar scenery of sandy deserts and Arab costumes, and the following event of Bazil being accidentally shot in the head by a rogue army officer, carry some suspense and sorrow. These serve as a succinct and sufficiently grave acknowledgement of the atrocities of terrorism, yet thankfully Jeunet has the intelligence and frivolity to drop the solemnity at this point, avoiding overstatement of the point and unleashing riches of wonderfully liberating and delightfully unpretentious entertainment.

Bazil's accomplices, or rather, kind and caring companions, are an extremely lovable and splendidly colourful bunch of very uncomplicated characters. Living in a cosy makeshift home, they support each other using their special talents, which range from the remarkable innovation of an expert inventor (a charming Michel Crémadès) to the incredible flexibility of a charismatic contortionist (Julie Ferrier's infectious spunk matches perfectly with Dany Boon's priceless quirks). Their plans to foil the two villains are extremely creative and utterly unexpected, providing most of the film's subtle and beautifully simplistic humour.

Although the film's simplicity does comes at a cost, dragging it far away from Oscar-worthy greatness. It also results in a slight lag in the middle, where its lack of depth truly takes its toll after the initial burst of exuberance momentarily ceases to resonate. However, this barren stretch of reel precedes and is redeemed by the ultimate serving of ingenious wit and hilarity.

All in all a sumptuous treat for everyone, proving just as effective across the language barriers.