Review of Micmacs (2009) by Ben W — 16 Jul 2010

"Micmacs," from Jean-Pierre Jeunet (France's Terry Gilliam), has dazzling visual style but little to no story. After the novelty of the quirky, 1940s-style art direction wore off, which took about a half-hour, I was overwhelmed with boredom.

The main character is an impoverished sad sack who almost never speaks. The character appears to have been modeled on Charlie Chaplin's Tramp. But Jeunet captures only the look of the Tramp, not the deep heart of the character.

In "Micmacs," Jeunet many times displays openly a great love for classic American movies. There is one sweet sequence, for example, where the sad sack perfectly lip synchs every line of dialogue while watching an old Humphrey Bogart movie on DVD. But Jeunet here demonstrates little understanding that an essential part of what made these movies work so well was the story. The best Bogart movies didn't just look great!

The sad sack, played affectingly but superficially by Dany Boon (yes, he spells it with one N), has an animus against arms manufacturers for reasons I won't reveal. So when he (ludicrously) stumbles on a murder attempt by arms manufacturers, he seeks to take them down. He falls in with a quirky group of misfits who appear to be refugees from a traveling circus, and they become his misfit army.

The only folks I could see getting substantial pleasure out of "Micmacs" are those with serious interest in art direction and set decoration. But even for them, their impulse will probably be to turn down the sound so as not to let the inane story take away from the visual pleasure. Crazy people such as myself who care about the stories in movies will no doubt be seriously disappointed by this film.