Jeunet remains one of the world's most imaginative directors. But Micmacs is a misfire.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jul 22, 2010

While the parts are quite good, the sum is pretty pedestrian.

| Original Score: C+ | Jul 16, 2010

I suspect this is what the world looks like in Jeunet's head all the time.

| Original Score: B+ | Jul 1, 2010

Micmacs, finally, is a romp through comic cinema history in which everything zips by so fast that you're too distracted to notice that it's all completely meaningless.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jun 25, 2010

Micmacs is never at a loss for imaginative frills; it's the details of the plotting, however, that get somewhat mired in the weeds.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jun 25, 2010

Jeunet's maverick imagination sometimes gets the best of him, and Micmacs is an ultimately exhausting case in point.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jun 18, 2010

Spiced with melancholy and magic, Micmacs is an imaginative live-action film with the playfulness of an animation like Ratatouille.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jun 17, 2010

The films of director Jean-Pierre Jeunet are so rabidly inventive that, if you waltz into them unawares, you're likely to feel poleaxed.

| Original Score: B+ | Jun 11, 2010

Micmacs ends with an elaborate set piece celebrating illusion at its most seductive, but the movie itself winds up feeling like just that: an exercise in surface tricks and sleight of hand, without much emotion or warmth to give it more meaning.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Jun 11, 2010

I'm not ready in the current marketplace of boring junk to yet say that a movie can be TOO clever. Although Micmacs sure tests that theory.

| Jun 4, 2010

I found this film unbearable, almost unwatchable. Fifteen minutes in, I felt as though I'd been drugged, and I stayed awake only by shifting constantly ...

| Original Score: 1/4 | Jun 3, 2010

A whimsical whirligig of a movie filled with salvaged metal and salvaged lives, where a bullet to the brain brings insight and a bunch of clever misfits bring a couple of weapons-making giants to their knees. What fun.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jun 3, 2010

Micmacs is the equivalent of a circus troupe setting up a tent in a war zone: You're entertained, even delighted, but after a while you suspect there are more serious matters at hand.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jun 3, 2010

The movie clicks along pretty well until they launch their elaborate plot against the merchants of death, which seems to go on forever.

| Jun 3, 2010

Jeunet's film, co-written by the director and Guillaume Laurant, is one of high polish and prodigious creativity. I found it exhausting.

Full Review | Jun 3, 2010

In an age when special effects can show us almost anything, there can come a tipping point when a movie is essentially only showing off. I'm not flatly against that, but in general, I like to delude myself that the story is in the foreground.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jun 3, 2010

It is pure cinema almost for the sake of pure cinema, at its heart a surprisingly moving love story that ended up catching me almost by complete surprise.

| Original Score: 3/4 | May 28, 2010

There are sections of "Micmacs" that express the joy of a certain kind of moviemaking so vividly you can't help bursting into a grin. But the movie leaves you with a hollow feeling, like the crash that comes after a sugar binge.

Full Review | Original Score: B | May 28, 2010

Who would wish to quarrel with such a sweet and noble sentiment? There is no question that the heart of Micmacs is in the right place, but the movie is also a little thin.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5 | May 28, 2010

Although often charming, Micmacs seems so pleased with itself that it hardly needs an audience.

| Original Score: 2/4 | May 28, 2010