Le petit prince

In an age that is so saturated with social media and entertainment, I often forget when the last time was that I saw such a wholesome film as this. My heart is often overwhelmed at how quickly innocence and childhood is sucked away in our culture. I personally felt when I was young that innocence was to be looked down upon. As most encounter, the years couldn't go by fast enough for my young self, constantly wishing to be older and wiser. Now is the time I look back. I deeply appreciate this film because it cherishes the beauty of a child's imagination. The animation leaves me awestruck at its beautiful simplistic style of stop motion. I cannot help but by transported back into my ever too short childhood along with the little girl and the Prince. I hope more teenagers and adults will stumble upon this piece of art because it is such a good reminder to cherish our imaginations amidst our mundane every day life.

Animation is under-estimated, perhaps because we tend to be afraid of what we do not understand.

I have seen a lot of films, done a lot of reviews and thought I had seen it all.

I was wrong.

First, I had not read the book prior to seeing this film nor had I seen the earlier screen version.

No matter. I was transfixed and stunned. I was still sitting there when the final credits rolled, which is really a feat because the credits roll for 10 minutes after the word FIN (THE END) rolls. (If you miss the credits, you miss the TURN AROUND song which itself could be highlight of one of the most incredible music scores in one of the most incredible movies ever).

When computers were first being married to animation -- a marriage made in heaven I think -- I recall an interview with a senior animator who confided that when the day came that they could get the "eyes" right, they would have reached the pinnacle of their craft.

That day has arrived. This movie is the herald.

Watching the eyes in this film, I felt as though I was watching real people. Does that make me sound daft? I hope not. There is one scene where the little girl watches the Aviator go to the hospital in the rain. She is at the same time transfixed with sadness and soaking wet. The animation made both conditions "real" at the same time. I don't know how. But it did.

Jeff Bridges, a brilliant actor with a record longer than your arm, gives the "voice" performance of his career here, and Rachael McAdams, former Femme Fatale, former "against type" actress (TRUE DETECTIVE) ditto.

Running out of superlatives, something I seldom do, so I will stop here.

See it. Don't argue. Just see it.

There is one thing you have to know before even read about this movie, and it isn't the summary: There is already a LOT of things telling the same old story of the book. How the pilot and the prince became friends, all the adventures and beyond, in other animations and endless other media. This movie isn't about those two characters only. It's about how this story can touch people since it was created, from toddlers to grandpas, in different ways and in different ages. I've seen people say out loud "this is not little prince!", but I say "yes, it is!". Want to see a pure version? Read the book. The animation and the characters are rich and lovely, the CG and the stop motion are perfect and well used. Everything is heartwarming. If you don't know the book, you'll read it after seeing this. If you do, I'm sure you'll cry a lot. And at the end of the movie you'll want a fox for you too.

The movie opened today - 29 July 2015 - here in France, and I saw the second show here where I live, the small town of Paimpol. There were perhaps 30 people altogether in attendance. I could hear that the few children among them were bored. So, first comment: 1) This is not a movie for small children. It won't interest them.

2) If you are expecting a video reproduction of St Exupéry's story, you will be very disappointed. It's in this movie, but it only comprises a small part of it. Most of the movie is a frame for that tale, the story of a small girl who meets an elderly aviator who tells her, in bits and pieces, the story of his encounter, many years before, with the Little Prince. If you go expecting just what you know from St Exupéry's story, most of this movie will therefore be an annoyance to you.

It took me awhile to accept the frame story. It's fairly banal, fairly Hollywood. Nowhere near the originality of St. Exupéry's remarkable tale. But if you let yourself go with it, it has an appeal over time.

The part devoted to St. Exupéry's original tale is the best, as far as I'm concerned.

We also see the prince as an adult, very changed. That came as a shock at first to me, but again, I let myself go with it, and it had a certain fairly obvious interest.

This is not a great movie. "Ernest and Célestine" is a thousand times better. But it's worth seeing.

Again, however, this is NOT a movie for little children. They will be bored.

I usually love the French animations, because unlike American, the stories, musics, characters that influences the thousands of year cultural history. Definitely not comparable to the Hollywood standards, but it had its own technical brilliance. All I wondered was why this film was in English language.

It deserves to be on the upcoming's big occasion (2016 February), if it is eligible for the American Academy Awards. From the director of 'Kung Fu Panda' original movie, which was partially based on the children's novel. The book adaptation is the stop-motion animation and the remaining story's the regular 3D animation.

Just remember the movies like 'What Dreams May Come' and 'The Lovely Bones', those magical worlds and breathtaking landscapes. Usually animations are associated with comedy genre, especially when a child character attached to it. This film was not even a comedy, more like those two titles I mentioned.

The screenplay wise it was a very 'Neverwas' type, except this one was an animation. But appropriate for people of all ages. The kids can realise the importance of their childhood and the older people can become kids again. The film compressed the gap and erected a bridge between the two hoods, the childhood and the adulthood.

"What is essential is invisible to the eye."

I did not know what to expect from it, but I highly satisfied with the final product. The film characters had no names, but called, the Little Girl, Mother, Fox, Rose, Snake, King et cetera as what their role is and species. Barely there are only 3-4 characters where the story was focused. Obviously it had a villain, but very unusual existence time and in a crucial part of the story.

I don't remember how the 100 minutes went so fast like a ray of the light beam flashed away. The pace of narration was not a rushy, except the opening part. But once the old man character, the Aviator, voiced by Jeff Bridge was introduced, the movie turned into completely different and awesome. Yes, Jeff Bridge's voice was so good for the background narration.

This story is about an old man who refused to grow up mentally and believes the existence of the magical stars and planets. The whole neighborhood stayed away from him and his troubles, until a new girl arrives at the next door. The little girl befriends him and falls for all his stories discarding her daily routines, but later it complicates their relationship after her mother finds out what they're up to. What happens to them and how the story concludes is the remaining part.

"She was not a common rose. She was the only one of her kind in the whole universe."

This story was finely fused between the reality and fantasy. Most essential storyline for the present world. In the name of education how the children were enforced by their parents to mechanical life with less time to play out and make their own friends. Especially as they were lacking the creativity to make up their own fictional worlds with their toys like the kids from a century ago were.

It might psychologically affect their characters while becoming an adult like the Aviator in this film, but as one of lines from the movie say 'Growing up is not the problem. Forgetting is', the children are losing their innocence over the adult's reality world. Who knows, someday those kids may become the greatest writer inspired by their childhood days.

If you ask me, I strongly recommend it for all. It is very encouraging film for the parents how not to raise their children and for the grown ups how not to get lost is the adult world. Most elegant flick of the year, along with a very few others.

You don't have to ignore it because you have read the book, like I said it was not completely borrowed from the original material. Instead, two-third of the film was freshly established out of the same name masterpiece. I'm not familiar with the book, so I've no thoughts that differentiate between these two formats. But definitely the film deserved all the appreciation from critics and movie

9½/10