Les mille merveilles de l'univers

This is one of my favourite SciFi-flicks. Its a about the mysterious dissaperance of the 12000 citizens of pleasure-island Sepulveda. Because of the suspision on alien abduction astronomy-professor Larsen (Karyo) is called in to handle the investigation. This movie has the sense-of-wonder element typical for hard scifi litterature and movies (such as 2001) whitout the dryness typical for that genre. It is lowtone wierd, with hypnotic female president of the world, psychadelicsusing general, genderless maniac organdealer, telephacy-cybernetics, a blue guard, swat-team uprisings and more.

First thing i should say is that i am a huge Julie Delpy fan. But even with this bias, i cannot recommend this film. I have the DVD which contains an English and french version of the film. Having watched both, i would suggest watching the french version..........but only if you cannot speak french!! It really is better not to know what is being said and not to be sure what is going on. The story is preposterous, the dialogue is insulting and the acting pure B-list (at best). At no time do you feel empathy with any of the characters. When they die the only thought that went through my head was "Thank god, now just kill the others and i can stop watching" I wish i could say something positive about this film but i cant. Even my love of Julie Delpy cannot save it for me. The lead actors in this film have been in such films as Nikita, Before Sunrise, Pulp Fiction and Ronin (according to the DVD credits). They should have known better!!

If you are, like me, addicted to the perverted pleasure of watching very very bad movies, don't miss that one. Everything is pathetic. Everything. What is fascinating in that kind of masterpiece is: - "Is it on purpose?", - "How did they get the money to do that?", - "What was the satanic deal that made the actors get trapped?" - "Are they insane?", - "Am I insane enjoying this?".

I've just been a bit deceived by Féodor Atkine who seems to be interested in his role ans played eventually quite well...

If you want to pull Tcheky Karyo or Julie Delpy's leg, don't hesitate: talk about "les Miller merveilles de l'univers".

Beowulf, my favorite worst movie, has found its master.