This is not one of P.Leconte great films. The subject and poster are attractive, but the delivery is a complete let down to me.
The story itself doesn't make any sense. The way the shop is presented, it is nothing more than a place where to buy weapons. Selling ropes, poisons and guns with only one bullet doesn't cut it. The shop isn't even secret. By the way, many of the customers should be murderers, but we don't see any. The son's joy is feared as it might cause a loss of customers, but it never does... Big lack of imagination in the general design.
All this could be forgiven if balanced with small ideas, but there are very few of those, and most of them are deja vu. Suicide is illegal in public places, like in the comics Judge Dredd from the 70s. The family owes a lot to the Addams: the look of the father, the longing for death of almost all members...
The humour falls flat. No grief or sadness is ever felt. Poetry is absent. The animation is average. And they sing, awful songs, like in a Disney product. If you're going to make a musical, you have to come up with a good score. Just compare what they wrote with the Charles Trenet's classic used in the starting credits. Yuck !
The story itself doesn't make any sense. The way the shop is presented, it is nothing more than a place where to buy weapons. Selling ropes, poisons and guns with only one bullet doesn't cut it. The shop isn't even secret. By the way, many of the customers should be murderers, but we don't see any. The son's joy is feared as it might cause a loss of customers, but it never does... Big lack of imagination in the general design.
All this could be forgiven if balanced with small ideas, but there are very few of those, and most of them are deja vu. Suicide is illegal in public places, like in the comics Judge Dredd from the 70s. The family owes a lot to the Addams: the look of the father, the longing for death of almost all members...
The humour falls flat. No grief or sadness is ever felt. Poetry is absent. The animation is average. And they sing, awful songs, like in a Disney product. If you're going to make a musical, you have to come up with a good score. Just compare what they wrote with the Charles Trenet's classic used in the starting credits. Yuck !