Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s MICMACS Movie Review

MICMACS is the latest movie from renowned director Jean-Pierre Jeunet that takes place in France and stars Dany Boon as Bazil, an unlucky homeless guy whose life is changed by weapons; it first started with a mine which killed his father and a stray bullet that got lodged in his brain ready to kill him at any moment. His luck however starts to change when he gets recruited into a very unique crew of junk collectors: Remington, Calculator, Buster, Slammer, Elastic Girl, Tiny Pete and Mama Chow. While out one day, Bazil recognizes the logos of the weapons manufacturers responsible for his misfortune, he then comes up with a plan to take revenge on them. With the help of his new friends, they embark on a mission to take the two manufacturers down by pinning their respective CEO against each other.

The story of Micmacs is a mix of a heist, comedy and western movie all rolled into one. Think Amelie meets Ocean’s Eleven, that will give you a good idea of what to expect in the film. What’s somewhat original about the story is that instead of trying to steal something, the team is trying to take the bad guys down by using their own arrogance against them. This leads to some really funny scenes where the two manufacturers are taken down a peg to the delight of the audience. Unfortunately, the film had more weak points than it had strong ones. For one thing, it took too much time on establishing the story and the overall pace felt a little slow. In addition, while Jeunet’s style is evident in this movie and it’s refreshing to see it again, I found myself being distracted by some moments in Micmacs that didn’t seem to really advance the story but were only there to be quirky. In addition, the attempt to create some sort of love story between Bazil and Elastic Girl was unnecessary, the chemistry wasn’t there and it just seemed a little forced.

On the other hand, the mix of characters found in the story is very original and you find yourself falling in love with Elastic Girl and her bendy self, as well as the sweet and quirky Calculator and the rest of the gang. The great thing about characters in Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s films is that they are always unique and different from cliched characters and that’s definitely true here again. Furthermore, their ingenious master plan to take down the weapons manufacturers lead to some really fun scenes, like Buster being used as a human cannonball and Remington making phone calls (you’ll understand when you see the movie).

Overall, Micmacs is not Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s best film and while it does drag in some parts and might feel forced in others, it does have some good moments as well. So if you’re a fan of Jean-Pierre Jeunet, you might want to give Micmacs a shot, you’ll definitely feel at home as far as look and other familiar trademarks. But if on the other hand you’re not too sure about it, you might want to skip it in theaters and rent it when it comes out to DVD.

Don’t forget that Micmacs hits limited theaters this Friday, June 4, 2010. You can watch the trailer here and read all our coverage of the film here.