“COMICAL, CAPTIVATING AND CHARMING”
Starring: Dany Boon, Andre Dussollier, Nicolas Marie, Julie Ferrier, Jean-Pierre Marielle, Marie-Julie Baupand and Yolande Moreau
Directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet
MPAA Rating: R for sexuality and brief violence
Genres: Art/Foreign and Comedy
In French with English Subtitles
Running Time: 1 hr. 44 min
Distributors: Sony Pictures Classics
Review by John Delia
From France comes a quirky little film that captivates, explodes, deceives and in the end, grabs at your heart. It’s called Micmacs and the fun film fires up and takes notice. I loved everything about it and I can’t wait to see it again.
The story follows Bazil (Danny Boon) a young man who has lost everything to two munitions companies, including his father and part of himself. The former to a land mine and the latter was due to an accidental bullet in the head during a drive by shooting. The doctors had two choices for Bazil, open his head and take out the bullet causing probable brain damage or leave it in as a ticking time bomb.
Bazil chooses to leave the deadly ordinance where it lies and roll the dice each day of his life. As luck would have it, Bazil finds his way to a collection of wacky junkyard homeless who allow him to join their group. When Bazil tells them his woeful story the diversely talented members comes up with a plan to retaliate against the munitions companies.
Director Jean-Pierre Jeunet takes his film and shapes it like a Rube Goldberg machine with each scene delightfully interacting with the next in a cavalcade of action and interactive humor till the final ball drops. I loved how he introduces and develops his characters to have very different personalities and abilities that fit into the contraption that is Micmacs. Jeunet’s combining of his characters with the junkyard makes Micmacs a hit.
The characters in this eccentric comedy are contagiously charming. Each has a special talent reflected by their nickname. They all fit into the group in their own quirky ways, and decide to team up to take down the
munitions factories because of their strong bond created by being rejected by society. Calculator (Marie-Julie Baupand) can size up anything providing the information about any object in mere seconds. Elastic Girl (Julie Ferrier) can fit in a suitcase or bend her body to get in places like no other. Meeting Slammer, Mama Chow, Tiny Pete, Buster and other members of the gang on the screen is much more fun than reading it here.
The film is rated R for sexuality and brief violence so be cautious when wanting to bring immature children to see the film.
FINAL ANALYSIS: A neatly packed charming film you’ll surly want to see. (4.5 of 5)