Micmacs à tire-larigot 2009

Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel: Minor, almost trite, but still worth treasuring if you're not put off by "precious." Read more

A.O. Scott, New York Times: Who would wish to quarrel with such a sweet and noble sentiment? There is no question that the heart of Micmacs is in the right place, but the movie is also a little thin. Read more

Joshua Rothkopf, Time Out: It feels sprung directly from the insides of a cuckoo clock. All the characters chirp their one happy note at just the right moments, and you wake up in an artificial Paris that ought to insult any self-respecting Francophile. Read more

Jeff Shannon, Seattle Times: Jeunet's maverick imagination sometimes gets the best of him, and Micmacs is an ultimately exhausting case in point. Read more

Tasha Robinson, AV Club: Micmacs is an enjoyably weightless farce, a slapdash, stylish Rube Goldberg device made out of people instead of mechanical parts. Read more

Ty Burr, Boston Globe: Micmacs is the equivalent of a circus troupe setting up a tent in a war zone: You're entertained, even delighted, but after a while you suspect there are more serious matters at hand. Read more

J. R. Jones, Chicago Reader: The movie clicks along pretty well until they launch their elaborate plot against the merchants of death, which seems to go on forever. Read more

Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: Jeunet's film, co-written by the director and Guillaume Laurant, is one of high polish and prodigious creativity. I found it exhausting. Read more

Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor: The films of director Jean-Pierre Jeunet are so rabidly inventive that, if you waltz into them unawares, you're likely to feel poleaxed. Read more

Christopher Kelly, Dallas Morning News: Micmacs, finally, is a romp through comic cinema history in which everything zips by so fast that you're too distracted to notice that it's all completely meaningless. Read more

Tom Long, Detroit News: While the parts are quite good, the sum is pretty pedestrian. Read more

Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly: Director and co-writer Jean-Pierre Jeunet is back doing what he likes best, which is moving eccentric characters around a board in a miniature game of fate and chance. Read more

Eric D. Snider, Film.com: I suspect this is what the world looks like in Jeunet's head all the time. Read more

Betsy Sharkey, Los Angeles Times: A whimsical whirligig of a movie filled with salvaged metal and salvaged lives, where a bullet to the brain brings insight and a bunch of clever misfits bring a couple of weapons-making giants to their knees. What fun. Read more

Rene Rodriguez, Miami Herald: Micmacs never bores -- Jeunet keeps the pace brisk and the mood ridiculous -- but the movie piles on the whimsy so tirelessly, you eventually start to choke on it. Read more

Lou Lumenick, New York Post: Influenced by Jacques Tati, Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton -- as well as the British Carry On slapstick farces -- this film has long stretches without any dialogue at all. Read more

Rex Reed, New York Observer: Micmacs may not be everyone's cup of capricious comedy, but it delivers an audio-visual picnic of surprises that makes craziness contagious. Read more

Carrie Rickey, Philadelphia Inquirer: Spiced with melancholy and magic, Micmacs is an imaginative live-action film with the playfulness of an animation like Ratatouille. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: Micmacs is an inventive romp punctuated by the kind of quirkiness Jeunet has brought to all his films. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: In an age when special effects can show us almost anything, there can come a tipping point when a movie is essentially only showing off. I'm not flatly against that, but in general, I like to delude myself that the story is in the foreground. Read more

Sam Adams, Salon.com: There are sections of "Micmacs" that express the joy of a certain kind of moviemaking so vividly you can't help bursting into a grin. But the movie leaves you with a hollow feeling, like the crash that comes after a sugar binge. Read more

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: I found this film unbearable, almost unwatchable. Fifteen minutes in, I felt as though I'd been drugged, and I stayed awake only by shifting constantly ... Read more

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: Whimsical, theatrical and long on make-believe, it's as light as a feather and twice as ticklish. Read more

Calvin Wilson, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Jeunet remains one of the world's most imaginative directors. But Micmacs is a misfire. Read more

Stephen Cole, Globe and Mail: Although often charming, Micmacs seems so pleased with itself that it hardly needs an audience. Read more

Peter Howell, Toronto Star: Micmacs is like a Buster Keaton or Harold Lloyd movie where everybody is Buster or Harold, yet they all work in harmony. Read more

David Jenkins, Time Out: A comic potshot at the arms industry that makes for a hearty, if modest, return to form. Read more

Rob Nelson, Variety: Carefully apportions its visual jokes rather than bombarding the viewer with them. Read more

Brian Miller, Village Voice: Allusions are made to recent European arms deals in the Balkans and Afghanistan, but Micmacs is more fantasia than violent revenge tale. And its pleasing curlicues -- like a bouquet of spoons -- linger long after the predictable outcome. Read more

Ann Hornaday, Washington Post: Micmacs ends with an elaborate set piece celebrating illusion at its most seductive, but the movie itself winds up feeling like just that: an exercise in surface tricks and sleight of hand, without much emotion or warmth to give it more meaning. Read more