Review of A Monster in Paris (2011) by Dee R — 08 Sep 2012

This movie lacks greatly, as it doesn't quite promise us what we see on the cover.

You'd expect an epic musical to arise the moment we meet our adorable, mutated, singing pest, but this creature stars in only two songs; his solo "audition" song and the La Seine redeux.

I'm only mentioning these two, as I'm disgusted by the laziness of the movie's last song. It sounded like some random and cheap pop song they've decided to add at the last minute, and it made me realize even more how over the top the female singer's costume was. Not to mention how overly dramatic her reaction to the creature's supposed death was. Spoiled that one for you. Except, no, I didn't.

His death scene was lame and I didn't see the reason why any of these characters were upset about it, as none of them really had a bond with him. They were just being friendly to each other, but that doesn't mean you're friends.

There are only a few songs in this movie, and the female singer, Lucille, performed most of them.

Honestly, I am not interested in seeing a human sing the majority of the songs, if there is a giant flea wearing a costume inspired by the Phantom of the Opera and the Mask available to sing them.

The creators did not use what they had, and the creature was mainly being chased or shot at in this movie. I want to hear this damn creature sing, movie, otherwise you might as well should've made him a regular "monster".

You cannot let him have only one performance with this lady, who for some reason is the only person in France with a French accent, and make us believe they are an inseparable duo. The creators had the chance to build up their relationship with help of song, and they wasted it by dragging the least interesting scenes. There was no room left for developement.

The creature is a fairly decent singer. You can hear his voice isn't flawless, especially compared to Lucille, but it's fine. It's just awkward when you think about it; the flea cheated with a singing potion.

His voice portrays some kind of innocence, and is hilarious to hear coming from a giant figure like himself, but at least it isn't autotuned.

What does bother me is the fact the creature doesn't really have a personality. Sure, he looks and acts like he's new to the world, but how is that a "personality". He seems to have a personality when he sings, and he sure got the moves like Jagger, but like I mentioned, he hardly sings.

The scenes tend to revolve more around the human characters than the creature. He was hardly on screen, it was a waste.

Nevertheless, I gave this movie a high rating for a reason, and it's because I can't get over the scenes that were succesful. When this movie hits the spot, it hits it good.

I saw the creature's potential, and was charmed by him the moment he got rammed in the face by a door. His solo song was quite amazing and I was stunned by the Aladdin-carpet ride-images. Though, it probably needed more incidents and news reports for him to have a reason to lament about it. Again, there was not enough build-up.

The problem with this movie is that all the scenes that mattered were rushed, while the chase scene, for example, occupied most of the movie. It bored me. Most of the decisions made in this movie were pointless, they didn't add anything to the story.

The "romance" was the most tedious. Next to the fact I'm certain the audience would've liked to see Lucille and this giant monkey flea getting jiggy with it, as that's how people are, the sudden romance between her and the movie's wannabe-fashion-jock was unnecessary.

The movie actually starts off with this leprechaun guy having a crush on the girl that works with him at the movie theater. It had a very promising start, but as the movie introduces so many characters and doesn't know where to put the focus on, these characters and this romance gets neglected, making the audience shrug and yawn at the conclusion.

The first half of the movie has the right idea, but the second half is just boring. The movie was almost like a promotional video for the French singer who dubbed Lucille, while the creature that's mentioned in the movie's title sits in the background, smiling.