The City of Lost Children
1.5/4
Starring: Ron Perlman, Daniel Emilfork, Judith Vittet, Dominique Pinon, Genevieve Brunet, Odile Mallet, Joseph Lucien
Rated R for Disturbing and Grotesque Images of Violence and Menace
A few times during my illustrious career as a film critic, I've seen a movie that simply left me at a loss for words. The first time I remember it happening when I saw the 1973 cult horror film "The Wicker Man," and again last year when I saw Darren Aronofsky's hotly debated "mother!" It happened again tonight when I watched "The City of Lost Children." This movie has a lot going on, but almost none of it makes any sense.
The film takes place on a harbor that was apparently stranded in hell. A crazed scientist named Krank (Emilfork) is kidnapping orphaned children. His goal is to stave off old age by stealing their dreams. One such victim is Denree (Lucien), a toddler with a voracious appetite and a large but simple-minded guardian named One (Perlman). A girl named Miette (Vittet) knows how to find the boy and is willing to help if he will help her steal a safe to pay off a debt to a pair of creepy conjoined twins (Brunet and Mallet).
"The City of Lost Children" is just as insane as it sounds. Perhaps more. I don't mind this fact, per se. I mean, my favorite movie is "Brotherhood of the Wolf," which mixes (among other things): martial arts, a monster, and a guy who talks to trees. All in a period piece setting. The difference is that as wild as the story got, Christoph Gans's movie actually made sense. The same cannot be said for this stinker, which is borderline incoherent from beginning to end.
Whenever a film starts, there has to be a set-up. This is where the characters are introduced and the pieces of the plot are set-up. That part is missing in this movie. Not just ineptly handled or rushed through, but entirely absent. The film starts on a different page than the audience. As such, I couldn't understand the story's internal logic. And for a movie as warped as this one, that's important. The film continues to make this mistake all the way through the film. Characters are introduced with relative frequency from beginning to end, but again, they're not introduced. The characters know who they are and what they have to do with the plot, but it's never conveyed to the audience. That's just bad storytelling.
The performances are impossible to discuss because it's impossible to understand who these people are and what they're doing in this hopeless mess of a plot. Ron Perlman speaks decent (if intentionally broken) French as One, which is pleasantly surprising. And the rest of the cast manages not to stand out or annoy. I suppose that, under these circumstances, such a statement is a compliment.
The biggest selling point of the film is the visuals. Boy, are they something! Men with mechanical eye devices, a strange dwarf woman with a more than passing resemblance to Zelda Rubenstein, and some truly eye-popping sets. If Guillermo del Toro did a steampunk version of a Charles Dickens novel, it might look something like this. It should have been put to better use than a plot that is impossible to follow.
This is a movie where you suffer through it, wishing and hoping that there will be something, anything that will grab your mind or your heart. Sadly, it's all just an intriguing looking (I won't use the term "pretty" because it definitely does not apply) pile of hooey.
Note: I'm curious about the MPAA's rating. It is rated R for "Disturbing and Grotesque Images of Violence and Menace." I wonder if we saw the same movie. There's very little overt violence and the images of the villains are more creative than "Disturbing," "Grotesque" or "Menacing" to anyone over the age of 10. I'm not saying that this is kid-friendly, since they'll be as bored out of their minds as I was, but compared to, say, "Pathology," it's Barney the Purple Dinosaur.
Starring: Ron Perlman, Daniel Emilfork, Judith Vittet, Dominique Pinon, Genevieve Brunet, Odile Mallet, Joseph Lucien
Rated R for Disturbing and Grotesque Images of Violence and Menace
A few times during my illustrious career as a film critic, I've seen a movie that simply left me at a loss for words. The first time I remember it happening when I saw the 1973 cult horror film "The Wicker Man," and again last year when I saw Darren Aronofsky's hotly debated "mother!" It happened again tonight when I watched "The City of Lost Children." This movie has a lot going on, but almost none of it makes any sense.
The film takes place on a harbor that was apparently stranded in hell. A crazed scientist named Krank (Emilfork) is kidnapping orphaned children. His goal is to stave off old age by stealing their dreams. One such victim is Denree (Lucien), a toddler with a voracious appetite and a large but simple-minded guardian named One (Perlman). A girl named Miette (Vittet) knows how to find the boy and is willing to help if he will help her steal a safe to pay off a debt to a pair of creepy conjoined twins (Brunet and Mallet).
"The City of Lost Children" is just as insane as it sounds. Perhaps more. I don't mind this fact, per se. I mean, my favorite movie is "Brotherhood of the Wolf," which mixes (among other things): martial arts, a monster, and a guy who talks to trees. All in a period piece setting. The difference is that as wild as the story got, Christoph Gans's movie actually made sense. The same cannot be said for this stinker, which is borderline incoherent from beginning to end.
Whenever a film starts, there has to be a set-up. This is where the characters are introduced and the pieces of the plot are set-up. That part is missing in this movie. Not just ineptly handled or rushed through, but entirely absent. The film starts on a different page than the audience. As such, I couldn't understand the story's internal logic. And for a movie as warped as this one, that's important. The film continues to make this mistake all the way through the film. Characters are introduced with relative frequency from beginning to end, but again, they're not introduced. The characters know who they are and what they have to do with the plot, but it's never conveyed to the audience. That's just bad storytelling.
The performances are impossible to discuss because it's impossible to understand who these people are and what they're doing in this hopeless mess of a plot. Ron Perlman speaks decent (if intentionally broken) French as One, which is pleasantly surprising. And the rest of the cast manages not to stand out or annoy. I suppose that, under these circumstances, such a statement is a compliment.
The biggest selling point of the film is the visuals. Boy, are they something! Men with mechanical eye devices, a strange dwarf woman with a more than passing resemblance to Zelda Rubenstein, and some truly eye-popping sets. If Guillermo del Toro did a steampunk version of a Charles Dickens novel, it might look something like this. It should have been put to better use than a plot that is impossible to follow.
This is a movie where you suffer through it, wishing and hoping that there will be something, anything that will grab your mind or your heart. Sadly, it's all just an intriguing looking (I won't use the term "pretty" because it definitely does not apply) pile of hooey.
Note: I'm curious about the MPAA's rating. It is rated R for "Disturbing and Grotesque Images of Violence and Menace." I wonder if we saw the same movie. There's very little overt violence and the images of the villains are more creative than "Disturbing," "Grotesque" or "Menacing" to anyone over the age of 10. I'm not saying that this is kid-friendly, since they'll be as bored out of their minds as I was, but compared to, say, "Pathology," it's Barney the Purple Dinosaur.
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