A Monster In Paris (2011)

A Monster In Paris is a kids film from France. It's a film that I knew pretty much nothing about before going to watch it, and the fact that I had heard no big fanfare before it came out, and it's biggest star is Adam Goldberg simply intrigued me no end. As such I found myself really enjoying  the film. The story is simple, due to a chemical accident a Flea is grown into a 10 foot tall Flea and scares people around Paris, who then go on the hunt for it. It turns out though that the Flea is just scared itself, and also has a wonderful singing voice (a side effect of the chemical accident). Then those who have taken the flea in must protect it from the city commissioner who in a bid to become mayor is publicly trying to kill the monster and win the public support.

Overall the film is a warm film, it never really gets the laughs going, which is a shame and I think a factor to why it will undoubtedly bomb at the box office, but it provides a lot of heart. I did wonder throughout who the film was aimed at though. There were moments in the film where the monster was really quite scary and I did wonder if that was perhaps a little too much for small children. There are songs in this film too, but not many, and whilst I thought that they were actually quite enjoyable songs, with a Parisian feel to them which really set them apart from other kids songs in films, they aren't what a lot of kids may be after from films at the moment. There aren't the grown up in jokes that the films of Pixar provide either. Instead the film looked at Love, inner Beauty, being brave enough to ask out someone you like, public perception, and had a whole Elephant Man thing going on as well.

Paris is a beautiful city, never more so than in the early 1900s when this film is set. As such it is wonderful to see city landscapes like these, very well animated. The people are quite simply animated, but I can't hold that against the film, as they didn't need to be anything more. The film is flawed in so much as the story isn't new, and like I say, at times it can feel slightly confused about the audience it is trying to attract. But having seen it, and having seen the amount of heart that it displayed I left feeling as though I had seen a really nice film, and if I had children I would definitely be taking them to see films like this one instead of films like Alvin & The Chipmunks or The Smurfs. I wish more kids films were like this one, just a little bit more original and heartfelt.