Am I Missing Something?

Clever and entertaining enough to recommend even to members of the 1%

an ambitious but ultimately ineffective debut endeavor.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

You have to be pretty stupid to give a children's movie a low score (for Christ's sake, it's for kids, right?). But to give a low score for a REALLY GOOD kids movie, you must have an exceptionally low IQ (and/or deficient imagination).Well, this is a REALLY GOOD kids movie. It is about loss, magic, adventure, friendship, etc etc... I was totally into it right to the end, along with my three year old daughter. (Who in retrospect, was probably a little too young since it does get a bit heavy, at times). The story is fantastic, the photography was beautiful, yet subtle and the casting was pretty much spot on.Not on Netflix as of March 2009, but definitely worth viewing, if you can find it.

At last a REAL charming fantasy about a boy called Charley that's sugar free. Cedric Kahn's 'L'Avion' was, I suspect, made for the cost of about one reel of Tim gone-for-a-Burton's schmaltz that has successfully fooled a lot of people who should really know better that it's a half decent film. If small boys involved in charming albeit slightly fantastic situations are your thing then check this one out and forget that chocolate factory. Vincent Lindon, sans moustache, is husband to the luminous Isabelle Carre and father to Charley to whom he has promised a bicycle but brings instead a model airplane. Soon after that Pierre (Lindon) is killed and soon after THAT the model airplane becomes animated as if representing the spirit of the dead father. This is light years away from Kahn's last At Bat which was the stylish thriller Feux Rouges and he seems to be equally at home in both genres. Isabelle Carre will probably never get another part as good as Se Souvenirs des belles choses which was, of course, a once-in-a-lifetime role but she brings a quiet, gentle luminosity to everything she does as in this role of a young widow trying to deal with a child who may or may not be hallucinating. One of the strengths of this film is that it's not just the boy who experiences the strange inexplicable powers of the toy. Initially Charley's school friend, then his mother and finally authority figures all see and/or suffer the wrath of the plane. If there is at the end perhaps a nod to the if-you-build-it-he-will-come aspect of Field of Dreams that is not necessarily a bad thing - and incidentally FOD was yet ANOTHER example Burton would do well to study. It's dollars to donuts that the hype surrounding Burton's movie will totally eclipse any PR that this ten times better film will receive which makes it, alas, one for connoisseurs only.