Azur & Asmar: The Princes' Quest (2006)

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.

I found the first fifteen minutes or so of this movie painful to watch; flat clunky animation of not much happening set against clumsy 3D backgrounds. I have nothing against slow, thoughtful movies, or less-than-state-of-the-art animation. But this was lacking any kind of spark. There was no life in it. It was like watching someone else wandering around in Second Life doing nothing in particular. The character of the father was particularly awful (the flat, "I am delivering a line" voice-over in the English version didn't help - not that the actor could have really done anything with the lines he was given, they were real: "I am going to advance the plot now!" stuff.) He wasn't even a TWO dimensional character. However, after this overly long set up, and once the action moves to the unnamed Arabian country, the movie picks up and becomes a lot more interesting, both visually and narratively and by the end, though I was not entirely blown away (the protracted 'dilemma' ending was far too long) I was happily satisfied. But then I'm not really the target audience. So, over to the target audience....My daughter Holly (aged 7) says: "I thought this film was really good when Azur had two keys and threw them into the two cavern door when they needed it. It was a bit scary when he didn't have the key for the slashing irons but his brother did and he used it. It was fun. The wee girl as the princess was good. It was one of the most enjoyable movies I've ever watched!"

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.

This movie has it all for all ages - eye-popping visuals, perfect subject independence, gorgeous music and it is chock-full of wonderful messages and story-telling for everyone.The richness in the images is equaled by the richness of the subject matter: a story rewarding curiosity, fidelity and bravery deals with the excitement of discovering little-known cultures, eras, religions, foods, habits of dress, languages, music and the other sex...The trailer and the brief description by the distributor hardly do this piece of magic justice. A must-see as soon as it becomes available near you.