Un monstre à Paris

The Computer-Generated Imagery is absolutely fabulous: it creates a fantastic and wonderful atmosphere kindly inviting the spectators to immerse themselves in the Paris of 1910, partially submerged by an exceptional flood. There is a lot of poetry and tenderness.

In the original version, the main characters are interpreted by Matthieu Chedid (better known under the pseudonym -M-), François Cluzet, the delicious and well-known Vanessa Paradis. The songs are beautifully interpreted with two versions of 'La Seine'. The first one is without -M-, with slight and voluntary low spirits. The second one, with -M-: this time Vanessa Paradis offers us an interpretation full of vitality and charm!

As a synthesis: a major cartoon for all the family. 6/7 of 10

I saw this movie yesterday. I was not expecting anything ; my boyfriend and I love cartoons, he chose it, I hat no idea what it was.

The beginning and exposition are a little slow, granted. But it is worth it, it allows you to enter peacefully in the story.

And as it goes on, the story gets more original as we see the monsters are not necessarily who we think.

I did not expect it to be a musical, too, and really, that's not it. But the story revolves around a singer, so she sings (and I stop here so as not to spoil). In french, she is voiced by Vanessa Paradis (yes, Jonnhy Depp's Vanessa) who is a pretty good singer and actress. The songs are pretty good, the other singer (pretty famous in France, too) add some poetry to the thing, but the music is not too much. There is no singing for no reason like in the Disney cartoons.

The rendering of Paris, during the great flood of 1910 (true story) in very well done and the atmosphere is beautiful.

There are a few situation jokes ; you don't explode with laughter but it's funny and you can see that the writers prepared them carefully (the thief joke, for instance). Plus, in the french version, there a plenty of little allusions and puns that are really fun.

All in all, a very enjoyable experience for kids or adults.

A very enjoyable kids' movie which pays homage to other 'monster'-classics like Frankenstein, The Phantom of the Opera and King Kong. A feast for the eyes and a classic story with a twist in which losers become heroes, heroes become villains and a monster turns out quite different to what we expect. Well not really, because all monsters are misunderstood gentle souls and greedy ambitious people always turn out to be the real monsters. The story is accompanied by beautiful songs. I regret to have seen the English version because I just know the original French chansons must be even better. My 4 year old daughter, 11 year old son and I loved it and my wife quite enjoyed as well. Certainly not a waste of money like some of the other reviewers said.

OK. First and foremost it's a kids film. On the whole all kids films are reviewed by adults on IMDb and therefore shouldn't be reviewed like Saving Private Ryan or the Green Mile. My 3 and 5 year old enjoyed the film, the characters and the music and came out smiling afterwards. Not as good as other children's films such as The Incredibles or Finding Nemo (larger budget I imagine), but certainly in the ballpark of Despicable Me or Megamind. Either way, lovely animation of Paris, interesting storyline, and for me it gave the adults enough to keep watching, or is that because I had a crush on Vanessa Paradis when I was 14?

I was browsing through IMDb when I stumbled upon the reviews of this movie. As a matter of fact, 6 months ago, I saw the Dutch dubbed version with 3 kids (one 6y, 2 10y).

I have to say, everybody enjoyed it. The 6y old even asked me to buy it on DVD. I wonder if the person who gave this a "1" even bothered to look at the movie at all...

Because I like Paris, I enjoyed the little details the French animators put in it. It really captures the Parisian atmosphere. The animation is in the same league as Megamind, Despicable Me etc. It's not as good as the Pixar/Dreamworks movies, but it was still very well done.

Some jokes worked, others didn't, but all in all I found it well worth the money.