jtaveras64 I really wanted to like this film. It has all the elements i love in film, EVA GREEN! Gothic and neo noir style, beautiful visuals and an intriguing beginning. It does however have a major flaw, i could not connect with this ever convoluted plot. It was irrational and nonsensical and tried to hard to be clever delivering any sort of rationale for the final 5 minutes. Which means sitting through a movie that functions as a puzzle that never really materializes. It certain is unique, and it did have potential. But then it didn't. Simple as that. Final Grade C-

bowmanblue I've watched 'Franklyn' twice now. The first time I really liked it. The second time, I'm not so impressed. I think it was down to me knowing what was happening even earlier than I had originally.It's an odd piece about two stories running parallel to each other. Nothing that original you might say, but one story is set in a clearly futuristic, dystopian world while the other is simply present day London. You may wonder how exactly these two worlds are connected. Then you kind of figure it out yourself (probably about midway) and the film then continues as if you're still in the dark.Some bits of it are very good - Ryan Phillipe is about the best actor by far who does his best to life what - sometimes - is a bit of a flat script. If you like weird and dark futuristic worlds, you'll like his story best. However, his parts are almost like an action film, whereas the London bits are more like your basic melodrama, leaving the viewer feeling a little off balance.There is definitely an interesting story here (and made more interesting the way it's told). However, I understand that it was originally a SHORT story. That explains a lot. It does feel like it's been dragged out a bit. I can see Franklyn definitely finding an audience. You have to be into lesser-known movies that deliberately try something different. However, I can also see as many people finding it boring, incomprehensible and worthless. Research it carefully before you invest your hour and a half in this film.

evileyereviews With a slow and confusing buildup, this flick threatens to be too clever for most patrons. But somehow getting lost in this flick is more a wonderful bliss than discombobulating tragedy. As it moves forward, there exists a sense that this confusion will soon be assuaged, a definite tribute to the confidence that the director inspires in his viewers. The story is of four lost souls that share the same canvas of a portrait comprised of four seemingly different palates. As the story unfolds, hints of intertwining fates tantalize the viewer, but the denouement is nothing short of spectacular when our heroes actualize fate's appointments. The acting was sublime, whose exclamation point was punctuated with Eva Green's exhilarating role. The direction offered a pace that kept the viewer perfectly in the dark, without losing interest, but instead in rapture with intrigue. The use of color to differentiate different worlds was amazing, bringing the notions of reality and fantasy into the same conference room for a sort of treaty mediation. The score was nothing less than the voice of this movie's soul, escorting us along its emotional byroads. For those comfortable outside of the realms of Hollywood's safety zone of commercial entertainment, Franklyn offers a clever and entertaining mug of fantasy in collusion with every man's quest for safe passage in life. Merci beaucoup.Genruk of Evil Eye Reviews

acerbus_8 I had fairly high expectations coming into this film. Good score on IMDb and interesting trailer. The trailer, very misleading, pegged this as and action movie with substance. I found nothing of what the trailer promised.It can be said briefly that the movie is about 4 people who have next to nothing in common, other than being being wounded mentally. I suppose the director had figured he would do a movie akin to Crash or Magnolia. The problem here is that these movies work. Because we are presented with people whom we can identify with, understand, and above all whom we can find interest in.Franklyn delivers none of this. From the onset we are introduced to people we are given next to no information about. They are complete enigmas. Sam Rileys forgettable and whiny Milo is apparently a romantic, who's been stood up at the rehearsal dinner for his wedding. Eva Greens Emilia is apparently something of a rebel (and art student), with a thoroughly poor relationship to her mother. Ryan Phillippes Preest is stuck in "superhero" vigilante mode. And Bernard Hills Peter is completely inconsequential throughout the first half of the movie.This amounts to a character drama without involving characters. Milo for instance seems to be completely insignificant to the story as a whole, and could easily be left out without it affecting the story.We are treated to trivial symbology which seems to have been put into the film, to try and convince the audience of its "art-house" merits. Furthermore there are times when the dialogue or narration borders on the bad. For instance Ryan Phillipes character finds himself imprisoned at one point, where we get treated to: "And suddenly out of the blue they came". If I had been locked up, I would expect that somebody would come to get me at some point. I wouldn't count that as out of the blue. The banal symbology and bad narration/dialogue would probably have gone unnoticed, had the characters been slightly involving though.Even the films title: Franklyn is beyond my meager intellect to understand. I have no idea who/what Franklyn is. Other than a label on a doorphone.The ending is clichéd, but the best part of the movie. As we are treated to something. But once more the lack of involvement makes the clichéd ending worse than it had to be.My favorite parts were of the comic-esquire scenes in the religious metropolis, and would've liked to see this world unfold. I thought there were some interesting possibilities here.If we could just have started with the ending of the movie. Take a strained situation and spin involvement into the characters this way around. Then I think it could've been surprising (figuring a surprise-ending is what the director had wanted), if the real world ended up being Meanwhile City. Especially since we're treated to 3 protagonists in the "real world", it would be something of twist to find out they were suffering from mass psychosis or something. Besides, Ryan Philippe is introduced saying the people of meanwhile city are mad.