Doobidoob So I saw this film during the summer (not my decision, by the way)and I have to say, there is so much wrong with this film. I am completely and utterly incredulous of the people who said it was amazing.First of all, the animation is poor. Very poor. The characters are so stiff most of the time and there is no attention to detail. I feel like I'm watching corpses being dragged around. I think there was only one character that seemed alive at all and he was just some throw-away comedy relief character. Also, the timing is either way too slow or way too fast. The 3D modelling is boring as hell. Everything just looks so plastic and yucky. The lighting is boring - it's like they just used a single light in the scene and went "finished!".It also seems like the filmmaker's didn't know how to make storyboards or learn anything about composition because the mise en scene sucks. There are scenes where characters are standing perfectly still in profile view for several minutes at a time for no other reason than that they were too lazy to render out scenes from a different angle. I couldn't even see their facial expressions properly. Everything is framed so lazily and it feels like somebody just threw it together in the last minute. The music was nothing particularly exceptional. It felt really cheap, like some composer decided "Nevermind - I'll just download some stuff from incompetech" (Actually, I take that back because Incompetech does have some legitimately decent stuff). The voice acting was not the worst I've heard, but it was pretty bland (oh boy, is this movie bland). Oh, the subtitles - they only translated the parts in french. I don't know if it was intentional to leave out the bits in arabic, but there seemed to be entire scenes in that language. It left the audience pretty confused (except for the ones who knew arabic, of course).I don't even remember too much of the story to be honest. It was so boring and meandering that I just couldn't care. The characters were unengaging and the dialogue didn't help. Maybe if there were a more talented, more competent group of people to adapt this story, maybe it would work. However we got this and this sucks big time. I'm unashamed of my bias against this film. You need only watch the trailer and just see for yourself the nastiness of the quality.You know what saddens me even more? The budget for this film was roughly 2.5 million euros higher than 'The Secret of Kells' which is just so mindblowingly beautiful, especially compared to this garbage. I'm giving it 3 out of ten to be generous.

mr-neil-thorne I have seen many great animated tales - from Wall-E, Cars, Ratatouille, Curse of the Were Rabbit, Spirited Away, Belleville Rendezvous, Princess Mononoke, to Ghost in the Shell, Aladdin, Waking Life, The Lord of the Rings and Peter and the Wolf.This is film has some great qualities of all the above. Firstly the story telling is charming, and time is spent on the characters from the beginning. The animation is more Belleville Rendezvous than Wall-E but it is an exquisitely unique experience as a result.In this film the intensity always took me by surprise. The incredible contrast of blue eyes, a silhouette frame against the night sky. The intricate detailing of eastern architectures. The vivid saturation of colours. The use of light and dark and colour in particular is possibly the most beautiful of any animation I have ever seen. It had a wonderfully natural quality to the character animation - like the older Disney films, but with striking backgrounds and detailing.Also interesting is the constant interplay between western and eastern cultures. The dialogue is at times both beautiful, quirky and thoughtful.I'd recommend this if you have an interest in other cultures, beautiful drawing and quirky storytelling.

bryanross1985 look, the movie is terrible. the voicing is awful, the animation is gaudy and unrealistic, the script was sub par and the characters were not even one-dimensional. this is worse than Kis Vuk. what a waste of money.This may seem like a comment from someone who has been blinded by the brilliant animation and tongue in cheek humour of Hollywood animation of recent years but this is not true.I do have time for independent movies (both animated and live action), I have seen a computer animated film made with a budget of $3000 (a lot less than this film) and it was fantastic. wonderful animation, solid story and fantastic action. this film looks like it was animated by a 2nd year d grade art student.

Robert_Woodward The story and setting for this French animated film, in which two childhood friends travel through a semi-mythical land on a quest to find the Djinn fairy, reminded me strongly of The Alchemist, a story written by Paolo Coelho. The tale is not quite as timeless as Coelho's novel but the film conjures a similar magic. This is in large part due to the jaw-dropping visual style, which is quite unlike anything else I have seen.The characters look superb, with luscious colours applied uniformly across clothing and intricate jewellery glinting marvellously. The range of settings is more dazzling still, ranging from green fields jam-packed with flowers and seedpods to bustling market towns to breathtakingly ornate palaces. There are innumerable wondrous images to recount and many clever visual touches such as the exaggerated proportions bestowed upon wildlife, including an enormous horse and a tiny cat.Unfortunately, I think that the translation of the film for English audiences has diluted some of the original message. This is most notable in the character of Crapoux, whose snobbery is used partly to propagate the film's message of cultural understanding. The scene where Crapoux derides foreign cookery next to that of his native country might be plausible when he is speaking in French. However, an English-speaking character deriding foreign foods against traditional English fare such as apple sauce seems rather surreal and amusing in way that the writers surely did not intend. (This is not to say that the English are strangers to cultural snobbery.) A further problem I had with the film was the ending, which was fairly predictable and therefore suffered from being so drawn-out. Nevertheless, I was greatly relieved to be spared the song-and-dance ending that typifies so many modern animations. The absence of any pop culture references was also refreshing (Pixar take note).