Captivatingly charming to a familiar extent of kinetic style whilst being miraculously harmless, it juggles realistic undertones and Hitchcock's "Rear Window" to an unexpected creative, original and emotional height. (A-)

While the eng dub can be off at times, It's still brilliant! Like a cross between superhero film and classical Fine Art. Visually stunning, the colors pop, and the cinematic style is particularly good. Highly recommend!

Phantom Boy is blessed with a freely simple animation style and an intriguing protagonist, but the cartoonish fight-against-crime mechanic is a very cliche one by today's standards.

A fun story for kids of all ages.

The plot is a mostly generic affair and lacks the necessary depth to make it truly compelling, but with the unique aspect of the protagonist's ability, charming characters, and lovely hand-drawn animation with that old-school feel, 'Phantom Boy' is still an entertaining film with a distinct noir feel to it. It's just a shame they didn't delve a little deeper - there was certainly potential for it to be something spectacularly interesting and profound.

I have always enjoyed foreign animated features, especially the French ones like Belleville Rendez-vous and A Town Called Panic, finding them to be a refreshing change from the glorious wonderment of Disney flicks and the Japanese Anime. This is from the same creators behind the well received and Oscar nominated A Cat In Paris, Jean-Loup Felicioli and Alain Gagnol. But this time setting the scene in today's New York where a criminal mastermind is at large planning to take over the city. Unfortunately, as this was a early afternoon screening for our younger, British generation, so I had to watch the American dubbed version, replacing the original French stars voices. Big names of French cinema too like Amélie's Audrey Tautou and Tous les Matins du Monde's Jean-Pierre Marielle. Like A Cat In Paris, the film follows an odd yet satisfying pair of heroes as they embarked on an adventure to piece together the mystery in hope to thwart the bad guy's plan. Our main hero is Leo, a hospitalised child who has an unique ability of being able to leave his body while sleeping and venture off in a ghostly manner able to visit his surroundings with being detected. He chooses to help a wheelchair bound policeman, who's broken his leg whilst being in pursuit of our antagonist, The Face. It's simplistic style doesn't deter the enjoyment or the animation in any way. It's very much a stunning piece of work, with a gorgeous use of vibrant colours versus shadows that gives the otherwise flat imagery great depth. The film has a lot of heart, something that is ideal for an audience of children. It's an engaging adventure that feels like those early adventure stories we would read as kids, the ones with basic yet powerful illustrations. This film is much like those, only fully animated in all it's glory. A delightful piece of animation. Running Time: 7 The Cast: 8 Performance: 8 Direction: 8 Story: 7 Script: 7 Creativity: 7 Soundtrack: 7 Job Description: 7 The Extra Bonus Points: 0 66% 7/10 www.spoileralertreviews.co.uk

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Charming little story, loved it.

The supernatural 'eye in the sky'. From the directors of 'A Cat in Paris', but this film set in New York City that narrates the story of a boy with an extraordinary power. If you had liked that film, you probably would like it as well, but a little lesser. Except this is not about the art of theft, but a cop trying to catch a most dangerous criminal. It is so weird to see the New York turned into kind of a province of France as everybody in this speak French, but expected it as it's a French film. A very interesting storyline. The characters were well designed and developed. But most of the film was focused on the boy, the cop and the main villain with a dog's perspective. There's a little part of a reporter as well. So I think it should have been called 'A Dog in New York', but the dog is on the wrong side where the most of the story was narrated from. The theme was not fresh, but the way they used to tell the tale makes all the difference. I mean you can compare it to 'If I Stay' kind of plenty of other films. Except it turned into a crime-thriller. A young boy named Leo, who is hospitalised for the serious illness, has a special power to leave his body and take an invisible form, and come back again safely within some time frame. On the other side an honest cop trying to hunt down a criminal who is threatening the peace of the city gets a backlash after met with an accident. Now the cop and the boy join the hands to thwart the villain's latest attempt to bring disruption. The mission was not planned well, so how they fight the crime and its result brings to an end to the film. "I'm not hungry. It's a shame because my dad's pasta is the best in the world." This is a PG film, that means it's aimed for all the ages. But particularly for the grown ups, there's nothing much to enjoy other than cool presentation. That does not mean for all the grown ups. The sketches and the animation technics were same as the previous film. They tried to reach bigger audience worldwide from the success of their previous film, but seems not achieved that goal. As the film had many great features like the characters and the story, they have fallen short to surpass as an overall film. Even anytime I would pick 'A Cat in Paris' over this, but that does not make this one's a bad film. It kind of looks like the supernatural version of 'Eye in the Sky'. I'm not talking about the actual film, but the concept of drones to watch over the criminal activity. In here the boy acts as the main communication device. He who one day wants to be a cop, helps to solve the crime. I think the end should have been a little better. Especially from the boy's perspective about how his tale ends were very intentional. Perhaps a bit of emotions at the end would have given a better result. I advertise the 2D animations too much on my blog whenever I review them, because they are rapidly fading away art. So my big thanks to those production houses and the filmmakers who still believe in it. If you are an animation film fan, you will enjoy it, no matter you loved it or not at the end. In a simple way to say, it is a fine film for the families with kids aged ten or under. It might look like a typical detective film, but entertaining with a few good moments. So check it out if you get a chance to access it. 7/10

Phantom Boy is a powerful film.

Great movie with a clever premise and a great with fantastic drama and comedy.

nice story about a sick boy at the hospital in New York city

We all want to fly! An engaging, beautiful animated film full of great voice performances and a unique blend of avant-garde and classic, hand drawn animation. A story about a young boy, his family and a cop fighting serious health issues and organized crime. Sound interesting? It is! So much more character than the overly perfect CG in today's films. Our kids are not being stimulated by imaginary cartoon characters as animation nears the look of live action eliminating the fantasy. A great family film even though there is some mild cartoon violence. Rare to find a blend to please adults and children.

Loads of ingenuity. A-

"Phantom Boy" is a quiet, peaceful little animated film, arriving just in time as a salve for a noisy, angry world.

Pretty good. Took my 4 year old son to see it. It had the typical cartoon action hero feel to parts of it, but with a bit of adult level of sadness that leaves you with a whimsical, yet eerie feeling.

An incredibly cute story, with very dark overtones.

A charming, beautifully drawn film that could have used a more gripping story, especially since it tries to pay tribute to noir films, and less dialogue.

French animated film can feel a bit trite because of its fairly juvenile storyline, but its varnished art-style, humorous bits, and moving moments make it a strong family film (particularly if you want to get your kids into the French New Wave at some point).

For those who enjoy international animated features, "Phantom Boy" brings the right amounts of slick visuals and human emotions.