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Critics Consensus: Not all of its many intriguing ideas are developed, but The City of Lost Children is an engrossing, disturbing, profoundly memorable experience.
Critic Consensus: Not all of its many intriguing ideas are developed, but The City of Lost Children is an engrossing, disturbing, profoundly memorable experience.
All Critics (56) | Top Critics (16) | Fresh (44) | Rotten (12) | DVD (2)
Jeunet and Caro have distinctive signatures like nobody else's.
On visual terms alone, The City of Lost Children is something of a masterpiece, using state-of-the-art physical, optical and digital special effects to stretch cinematic boundaries.
Essentially, The City of Lost Children is a macabre fairy tale, and while its tentacled comic-book plot and freak-show cast narrow its appeal -- this isn't a work of any allegorical depth -- Caro and Jeunet have pulled off a cinematic delight.
The City of Lost Children gets so caught up in its own weirdness that it all but shuts out the viewer.
An empty triumph of overkill set design and weirdo casting.
Set in a wondrously seedy waterfront world populated with runaway children and grotesque, sinister adults, it glistens with dense fantasies, technological feats that make the catch-phrase "state of the art" seem antique.
Delivers a darkly pleasurable tour of its makers' dark dreams.
A strange and inventive blend of fairy tale, dreams and steampunk stylings that doesn't quite hold together but is nevertheless a treat to behold.
It feels like concept art come to life.
City of Lost Children is unmistakably of its era: filled with oddball artifacts, and itself quite pointedly an oddball artifact, seeking approval on those very terms.
The production values are extraordinary.
The City of Lost Children showcases dazzling art direction that takes cinematic expressionism to new heights.
When a scientist kidnaps a brute's sister, he must join a group of urchins to retrieve her. Jean-Pierre Jeunet, one of our most imaginative and interesting filmmakers, throws all his cards on the table in this film. At each turn, Jeunet's world unfolds, and it's a dark vision in which a mad scientist can steal children's dreams, clones vie to be the Original, and a muscle-bound, monosyllabic tough finds his heart of gold. The film is an experience - a convoluted and occasionally hard-to-follow one, and I can imagine some people finding this film to be a collection of gimmicks, but I found it compelling and interesting. Overall, Jeunet is a unique filmmaker, and good or bad, his films are always interesting.
Super Reviewer
This lumpy steampunk dark fable is a perfect example of too much style over substance, offering us astonishing visuals, a beautiful soundtrack and spectacular plot devices (like the chain of events originated by a teardrop) but not so able to use all that in a more meaningful narrative.
02/01/2011 (DVD) A very strange but interesting watch. The performances are outstanding by both adults and children and what a weirdly but fantastic world. It was like a silver-screen flick with updated visual effects which made this film feel unusual and different. Wow. The setting is art, I mean the ideas and the artistry compliments the story giving it depth and darkness. What had me drawn was the background, it was very darkly, futuristic for its time and Gothic yet the people were from the 1950's so it seemed, very cool indeed. It's probably not everyone's cup of tea but it's definitely the type of tea that has an unusual blend that one learns to enjoy. The special effects were not overly done but it just had the right amount for taste and the clones just look so real, like they were real individuals rather than camera tricks, just so cool. It's definitely a strange one in my opinion but no doubt a watchable feature. I did notice that "Hell Boy" speaks in tongues? Did not know that.
This was a strange one but it had Ron Perlman in it and thats an automatic two stars!! A very strange little film that took me a while to get figured out but once i got in I was able to enjoy the very unique vision of this French film.
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