Directed in typically quirky fashion by Jean-Pierre Jeunet, the movie tells the story of a brilliant child who runs away from home to accept an award from the Smithsonian Institute. It's a movie that captures the weird mix of hope, alienation, and angst that is childhood.Beautifully shot in brilliant colors, the movie is a comedy with melancholy moments. It's kind of a kid's movie, but of the sort you get in France, which seems to consider children more sophisticated and complex than America (I'm with France on that). Which means it works quite well for adults.The movie does occasionally drag, and there was a point where my girlfriend and I independently wondered if that train trip would ever end, but for the most part, this is quite charming.

A chameleon of a film that borrows from Director Jean-Pierre Jeunets's adored filming bag of tricks but brings little fortitude by the films' conclusion. I am a huge fan of this director due to Amelie and A Very Long Engagement. Some of his other films, City Of Lost Children and the dark comedy Delicatessen, have left less of an indelible mark, but stayed inside their domain of post apocalyptic times. I bring these up as his last two, Micmacs, and The Young and Prestigious T.S. Spivet, certainly are related in their and-weapon statements but those messages are blooming in a comedic setting. Micmacs was irony that worked, but Spivet lost it's edge along the way. The former driven as "righting a wrong" and in Spivet, by finally talking about gun violence, even accidental, needed a reaction to T.S's story other than silly betrayal on live TV. As much as I want to love these movies, I am left unable to blend the message in the context of comedy. For me it was a futile attempt to mix oil and water. Both movies' messages get out through ironic media twists (humor) but the T.S. story feels too sad to leave up to a comedic actress playing a self important museum director. We wanted to care about T. S. but he's a rather stiff character and the young actor did not glow. The movie feels like it's going in a straight direction, like on his map of the United Staes. Once in Washington, the movies' strength, what's going on in T.S's mind, becomes something else. You can never allow for one actor or character to ruin your cin-experience, you can't ignore the sore thumb.

This film, directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet (Amelie) centres around a nerdish young boy (Kyle Catlett) who lives in the wilds of Montana. The natural wonders that surround him leave him largely unimpressed; he has other things on his mind, namely a compelling urge to invent a perpetual motion machine. This idea first surfaced at a lecture where a professor informed him that this was the holy grail for science. Eventually he comes up with a convincing answer to this problem and despite his tender years, convinces the Smithsonian Institution to look at his invention. To their surprise (and his) they realise that the boy wonder has done it. He has invented a machine which will rotate, not quite forever, but at least for 400 years. But this is a troubled young genius. He has to suffer the setbacks of his unusual family. His mother (Helen Bonham Carter) is a scientist whose speciality is bugs (the insect type) and with which she is totally obsessed. His father (Callum Keith Rennie) is the antithesis of his talented son, a man's man dressed as a cowboy, surly and unresponsive to his son's ingenuity. He is, in short, a boor. Furthermore, he appears to blame the boy for his favourite son's death in a shooting accident. The boy's final setback is his teenage sister (Niamh Wilson) who bristles with frustration for having to live in this desolate spot. Despite all this, he hops aboard a freight train bound for Washington, home of the Smithsonian, to give a speech re his amazing machine. Jeunet instills in this film an evident love for the story and great reverence for the spectacular setting and it shines through in every frame. The photography and production values have been created with great care and attention to detail, the slow travelling shot through his father's study is very beguiling. The one thing that puzzles me is why an intelligent woman like his mother would marry a wannabe, monosyllabic cowboy. Opposites attract? Possible I suppose. A rewarding watch.

We rent a lot of movies locally and we rented this movie with high hopes. We have enjoyed many movies with young children as the stars/co- stars (such as "Hugo," "Nim's Island," "What We Did on Our Holiday" and "Mr. Holmes"). Although we enjoyed Kyle Catlett's performance, before 30 minutes were passed, we stopped the movie, and returned it to the video store for a refund. We have spent our lives helping people and animals in peril. We are simply sick and tired of animals being depicted in movies in cruel or neglectful or abusive ways. People think "cowboys" are cool. Well, cowboys, like the father in this movie, was callous and cruel when one of their goats was in pain. We don't need to see idiot human characters with hearts of stone/no compassion and a room full of poor stuffed animal heads (very un-cool). What's cool is Chuck Connors in "The Rifleman" - a character who cared about humane treatment of people and animals.