The Little Prince (2016)

[starri]

Shelved by Paramount and rescued by Netflix, the movie is having a limited theatrical release and was released for streaming over the weekend.

I would love to say that it's perfect, but it isn't.  The final act gets a bit too literal for its own good.  But the first two-thirds make it worth seeing, and some of the animation is jaw-droppingly beautiful.  It's probably the best Pixar movie that Pixar didn't make.  Great cast (Marion Cotillard, Jeff Bridges, Ricky Gervais, James Franco) too.

"Growing up is not the problem, forgetting is."

[Scarlett45]

Hooray! I've been waiting for this, but I wanted to see it in French. 

[paramitch]

Honestly, I was both delighted and incredibly disappointed.

I loved the first half, but the second half lost me completely. The moment the little girl got in the plane, I just checked out. It didn't help that the movie immediately becomes dour and obvious from that moment forward, repetitively bashing us over the head (clumsily) with all the themes we'd already gotten from the (incredibly unlikable) Mom character in the first. 

I would have liked the movie so much more if it had simply spent more time on the Little Prince story, had lightened up the Mom a bit, and had then used the aviator's illness as the natural final chapter and place for the little girl to finally confront her Mom about her incredibly unrealistic expectations. Then the very end could still have ended in much the same way.

As it was, I was disappointed. I thought the first half was lovely, and the animation was gorgeous, but the second half kind of ruined it for me.

However, its saving grace was absolutely the paper animation style for the "Little Prince" core story itself -- it is easily some of the most beautiful animation I have ever seen in my life, and the interlude with the prince and the fox actually made me cry.

I just wish the movie had trusted the original book enough to focus more on that.

[starri]

13 minutes ago, paramitch said:

However, its saving grace was absolutely the paper animation style for the "Little Prince" core story itself -- it is easily some of the most beautiful animation I have ever seen in my life, and the interlude with the prince and the fox actually made me cry.

It made me cry too.

Like I said originally, the parts that are good are SO good, it makes the parts that aren't even more frustrating.  I don't mind a frame story, because the novel itself lends itself better to being told as a series of parables.  And if they hadn't made her get in that plane, it would have worked better.

[Wiendish Fitch]

Maybe I'm just a mean ol' curmudgeon, but I severely disliked The Little Prince.

This should have been an animated short; I hated the framing device, because it indulges in family film tropes that make my skin crawl (your parents are always wrong! The destructive eccentric next door is always right! Gainful employment is evil!). It has the same, sloppy story structure that Chitty Chitty Bang Bang does. 

Now, the proper Little Prince scenes? Beautiful, absolutely beautiful. Again, cobble them together, and you've got a near perfect Oscar bait animated short.

Edited October 4, 2016 by Wiendish Fitch