Critic Reviews

The movie--while it doesn't knock you out--doesn't self-destruct either. Besson may never rise to the level of his best American models here, but it's fun watching him try.

This semianimated adventure is enjoyable and imaginative despite its formulaic qualities.

Ultimately, Besson has made an interesting, if shaky in places, homage to childhood.

"The Professional's" Luc Besson has made a fair share of artfully bad movies. Arthur and the Invisibles -- half-live-action, half-CG kid's adventure -- is (by a hair) more bad-bad, like "The Fifth Element," than good-bad, like "The Big Blue."

The result isn't an unpalatable pudding but rather a fair-to-middling children's film that is half CG-animation and half live-action.

Luc Besson, a sort of French version of Steven Spielberg without the intuition, has tried a lot of genres in his young career and has had his greatest success with slick action films like "The Fifth Element" and "La Femme Nikita." Animated movies for kids he should stay away from.

This is director Luc Besson's first attempt at combining animation with live-action, and while the look of the film is impressive, he should have focused more of his efforts on fleshing out the script that he adapted from two of his own "Arthur" books.

Arthur and the Invisibles tries way too hard.

Arthur and the Invisibles may be a tale for children, but it's got the bad habits of a profligate adult -- the thing borrows shamelessly from its betters and then pretends to be self-sustaining.

This inventive family movie sets up the most delightful premise, then squanders it on the kind of yawn-inducing CG adventure you might expect from one of those long, plot-heavy cut scenes that slow down video games.