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Shelf Beauties |
Arthur And The Invisibles When you see a
movie promoting appearances by Madonna and Jimmy Fallon as reasons to
buy a
ticket, you know you are doomed.
Seriously, does the studio hope the three people who
saw Taxi and Swept
Away will get excited and bring thousands of friends?
Now, if Fallon makes a full length movie
about The Barry Gibb Talk Show,
I’m there.
Freddie Highmore
stars as Arthur – an adventurous boy fascinated by his
missing grandfather’s
wild exploration tales. Sadly,
Granny
(Mia Farrow) is having trouble paying the property taxes on their farm
and
faces foreclosure, so Arthur dedicates himself to finding a buried
treasure his
grandfather has told him about. Of
course, Granny is dubious, and thinks existence of a treasure might all
be a tall
tale, but Arthur soon starts to discover hidden messages that lead him
to The
Minimoys, who know where the treasure can be found, but must team up
with
Arthur to get it back from the evil Maltazard (voice by David Bowie). Can Arthur and
the Minimoys save the day? Arthur and The
Invisibles starts off as an innocent, wholesome family adventure, but,
when it
becomes animated, Arthur is on the path to throwing back drinks in da
club with
Snoop Dogg and his posse (yes, Snoop Dogg voices a character who
invites our
heroes to go to da club with him and drink some magic genie soda that
makes
them all feel weird inside). Sadly,
writer/director Luc Besson isn’t all that interested in
making a fun, sweet,
innocent, family tale set in a magical world.
He wants Arthur and The
Invisibles to be cool and
hip, which translates
into having a bad, sassy attitude, which conflicts too much with the
movie’s
original set up. The
attempts at humor
are too numerous, sarcastic, caustic and out of place.
On top of all of
that, most of the actors providing vocal talents in the movie just
aren’t
trying hard enough. Madonna,
as the
voice of the Minomoys’ Princess Selenia, needs to wake up and
drink down a few
cups of coffee to get the energy level up to snuff (caffeine
isn’t prohibited
by Kabbalah, is it? What if you just slip some Red Bull into the
Kabbalah
water?), while even the great, amazing, tremendous Robert DeNiro,
providing the
voice of the Minimoys’ king, sounds like he is phoning it in. Arthur And The Invisibles is rated PG for fantasy action and brief suggestive material.
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