Psycho's Movie Reviews #25: Arthur And The Invisibles (2006)

Arthur and the Invisibles (or Arthur and the Minimoys ) is a 2006 English-language/French fantasy, animated/live-action film directed and co-written by French filmmaker Luc Besson, based on his children's books Arthur and the Minimoys and Arthur and the Forbidden City.

It premiered in limited release in France on 29 November 2006, and received wide releases in a number of countries in the following weeks. With a budget of €60 million, Arthur and the Invisibles was briefly the most expensive French film production until surpassed by Astérix at the Olympic Games.

The film received negative reviews from critics, who criticized the animation and script, while praising the performances (particularly the voice acting) and visual aspects, and under-performed in the United States. It was nevertheless successful enough in France and in the rest of the world to have two sequels, Arthur and the Revenge of Maltazard and Arthur 3: The War of the Two Worlds. The film received the Imagina Award in the category Prix du Long-Métrage. The movie's soundtrack album was released on 9 January 2007.

Plot:

n 1960, protagonist 10-year-old Arthur lives with his grandmother Daisy in a quiet farm house on a dirt road, in a small rural community in Northeastern Connecticut (based on Sterling). His grandfather Archibald has recently gone missing and he sees little of his parents (who are away looking for work). Daisy entertains Arthur with stories of his grandfather's adventures in Africa, featuring the tall Bogo Matassalai and the minuscule Minimoys, of whom the latter now live in Archibald's garden, protecting a collection of rubies. Arthur becomes enamoured of a picture of Selenia, the princess of the Minimoys. When Daisy receives a two-day deadline to pay a large sum of money to a building developer named Ernest Davido, who plans to evict the two, Arthur looks for the rubies to pay off the debt and discovers various clues left by his grandfather. He is met in the garden by the Bogo Matassalai, who reduce Arthur to Minimoy size. From the Minimoys, Arthur learns that they are in danger from Maltazard, a Minimoy war hero who now rules the nearby 'Necropolis', after corruption by a weevil, by whom he has a son named Darkos.

Arthur, reflecting his legendary British namesake, draws a sacred sword from its recess and uses it to protect the Minimoys from Maltazard's soldiers; whereupon Sifrat, the ruler of the Minimoys, sends Arthur to Necropolis, with the princess Selenia and her brother Betameche. En route, they are attacked on two occasions by Maltazard's soldiers. In Necropolis, Selenia kisses Arthur, marking him as her husband and potential successor, and confronts Maltazard alone. When Maltazard learns that she has already kissed Arthur and thus can no longer give him her powers and cure his corruption, he imprisons all three, who discover a Minimoy form of Archibald. Thereafter Arthur and his grandfather escape and return to human form, with little time to spare before Maltazard's flood reaches the Minimoys. With the help of Mino, a royal advisor's long-lost son, Arthur redirects the flood to Necropolis; whereupon Maltazard abandons Necropolis and his son, and the water ejects the rubies above ground. Archibald pays Davido with one ruby; and when he tries to take them all, the Bogo Matassalai capture him and give him to the authorities (scene deleted in the U.S. edition). Arthur asks Selenia to wait for his return, and her agreement to do so while the film ends.

Production:

The animation was produced by the French company BUF Compagnie, which hired approximately 100 animators, most of them from French animation schools and without any previous experience. Besson wanted a photorealistic environment, and BUF initially used microlenses to film physical environments, but eventually instead used photogrammetry, where a digitized photograph of a real object is manipulated with a computer. Sets were built to 1:3 scale, which allowed the animators to use natural elements, such as plants and grass. While the film did not use motion capture, real actors were used as reference, and recorded with 13 to 14 video cameras, but without the markers used in motion capture. Besson directed their performances. In terms of lip sync with actors' dialog, the French animators could not cope with the English phonemes. For Madonna and David Bowie, a camera was used to record their lips to help the animators. The animation was done with proprietary software.

Box Office:

The film was budgeted at $113 million. In its first two weeks in cinemas in France Arthur earned over US$20 million.

My Review:

I first saw this when I was a little kid. What got me into rewatching it last year was that I only remembered a specific scene and the reason why I only remembered the specific scene was because it was my favourite childhood scene in the whole movie. I asked a group of friends to help me remember the name of this movie because I wanted to rewatch it once more and I am glad i did. I rewatched it a third time this year and I fell in love with it again. Note: the scene I was talking about was the one where Arthur looks in the telescope and talks to the Minimoy Prince Beta and then gets transformed into a Minimoy.

That and that David Bowie voices the villain... That's right, DAVID BOWIE IS IN THIS FILM! He actually does a good job with this as well, he's surprisingly into this weird film - then again it's David Bowie he liked doing weird things, didn't he? He's actually quite intimidating not gonna lie...

Another thing, Snoop Dogg voices a character too... Like WHAAAAAAA???? His character is just Snoop Dogg; everything he's in he just himself in a way isn't he...

This movie brings me so much nostalgia I love it and I'm so glad I found it. It's a very wholesome structured film. Many ups and downs and sparkles of happiness. Can highly recommend this joyous and heartwarming experience I endured while watching the film; 6/10.