""It's a bunch of young people. They come from a big city. They have nothing to do so they organize role plays. 3 years ago it was team Batman vs. Superman, they were jumping off buildings thinking they could fly. And then this year it's because of the film Arthur and the Minimoys, they discovered the filming house and since then it's been madness, they take drugs, they arrive at the weekend and they fight each other until to death. Like what a film can do damage!! » .
Oh my God ! But who can still write with aplomb this kind of bullsh*t that tries to make us believe that young people, even drug addicts, try to fly like Superman or kill each other while playing Arthur and the Minimoys? Who still takes the spectators for hams to the point of trying to make us still swallow this stupid morality on the dangerousness of films? Who dares to justify by such a moldy pirouette the profound debility of a script written with the feet? The answer is obviously Luc Besson. And if you miss all the fantastic aspect of the story, know that our hunter with rotten teeth comes back at the end of the film to tell us: I warned you this land is sacred “, sacred therefore mysterious CQFD. I honestly hope that one evening of drunken Luc Besson will lay us a sequel with young drug addicts who clash to death disguised as plumbers against guys in turtle suits, just to prolong the relevance of the message on the dangerousness of video games."
— FreddyK on SensCritique
Arthur, malédiction
Warning! Mature Content!
This following work contains material and themes that may include coarse language (albeit censored due to New Qualitipedia rules), sexual references, and/or graphic violent images that may be disturbing to some viewers. |
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"besides Luc Besson sucks his bite for 1h30 because throughout the film Arthur and the invisibles is treated like a Star Wars film basically there are figurines posters etc whereas in 2022 I think everyone is don't care about the invisibles
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For at least 20 MINUTES crazy things happen to the protagonists, but they all react by saying "oh it's Momo" and they go back to f**king....
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I think the worst thing is that the moral of the film is "how a film can hurt" yes it's true this shitty film took 1h30 of my life in addition to pissing me off the mouth
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In conclusion Luc Besson, you dirty, shitty fraud, never touch a camera again in your life, I beg you, you have done your mtn time like Kamelancien retired from rap, withdraw from cinema, thank you for the Fifth element and Leon.
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the fact that arthur and the invisibles manages to be a lot scarier than this shit supposed to be a horror film seriously questions me..
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2.4 million...... for shots filmed with a Wiko and black people who disguise themselves like Friday in Crusoe I'm going to destroy everything."— @Akhisan on Twitter"
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Arthur, malediction (English: Arthur, curse) is a French meta psychological horror film directed by Barthélemy Grossmann, released in 2022.
Written and produced by Luc Besson, it is inspired by the Arthur et les Minimoys franchise, also produced by Besson.
Plot
Alex is an 18-year-old young man. He has been a big fan of the Arthur and the Invisibles fantasy film saga for years. It was then that his group of friends offered him to go to the abandoned house, where the film was shot. They are unaware that they are about to fall into a deadly plot.
Production
Filming only lasted 33 days and took place in secret in the summer of 2020 in Normandy, between two periods of confinement linked to the Covid-19 pandemic. The shots took place in particular in the Château des Laitiers in the Orne, property of Luc Besson. The young Thalia Besson, holding one of the main roles, is one of the daughters of Luc Besson.
The existence of the project was not revealed until March 2022, almost three months before the film's release in French theaters.
Pourquoi c'est une malédiction absolue (Why It’s An Absolute Curse)
- Abysmal understanding of the source material: Where the base movies and even the cartoon focused on a fantasy plot with Arthur and the World of the Invisibles, the movie has no connection to the base franchise, it's literally a pittance attempt at a generic horror film around the license and even if the idea is not that bad, it does not work for a license for children such as Arthur and the Invisibles.
- What doesn't help with that is that Luc Besson is involved in this film as if he's not interested in his license and just prefers to extract whatever money is left from his license. This is a red flag because usually when the original creators are involved, it would be either mediocre or decent but here, much like Jeff Kinney for Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul and others, he ruined his source material due to lack of charm from the books themselves (at least the Arthur and the Invisibles films which has Luc Besson in it at least tries to have charm in it by trying to be memorable)
- The publicity of the film is just catastrophic, there was practically no announcement of the whole film except for a trailer in March 2022.
- The movie has almost no originality, it just steals ideas from other horror movies such as:
- Wrong Turn, there is a scene where a crazy man warns them not to go to this house.
- Hostel, there is a scene where the group of friends enters a city and there is a group of young people who look at them strangely.
- Evil Dead, a large forest where you can easily get lost.
- Brightburn, because it takes a fairly well-known license and turns it into a horror movie.
- The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, because the group of friends split up and some stay in pairs.
- Blair Witch Remake: for the hidden tunnel scene where you have to crawl out
- The Blair Witch Project: for the scene where Douglas gets lost in the forest
- All the characters, even Alex, are just bland and uninteresting, they just don't have any development, which makes them unlikable and there's no feeling when one of them dies, for example.
- The film is classified as prohibited for children under 12 during theatrical releases (which is equivalent to a PG-13) and prohibited for children under 16 when broadcast on screens (which is equivalent to R) which is ridiculous, since there are hardly any deaths shown in the entire movie and the only 2 death scenes shown are just not scary at all.
- The music is just terrible, it just feels like they took one music from a whole music list and put it in a random scene, especially in the scenes where Alex is chased by 2 policemen and the scene where they arrive at the house from Arthur and the Invisibles by a path.
- The acting alternates from mediocre to just bad, even if we feel that the actors are trying to play well it doesn't work.
- Let's take an example of the actress who plays Renata, she is impressive in the way she changes her mood. She is initially panicked when she sees the wounds of one of her comrades and panics to the point of screaming to leave. But, a few minutes later, she no longer seems traumatized and relaxes quietly with Samantha and music.
- Too many stupid and ridiculous passages throughout the film as if the protagonists wanted to die immediately.
- To give an example, there is a scene where Mathilde sees that there is someone in the house but does not go to warn Samantha and Renata that there is someone, she prefers to lock herself in the barn which is just ridiculous because of that she got killed by bees in the barn just couldn't get out.
- No character development in the entire movie, making them even less likable than before.
- The fact that the characters are hardcore Arthur and the Invisibles fans is just creepy, especially since the Arthur and the Invisibles license isn't that great.
- A badly worked and mediocre staging with many errors and false connections throughout the film.
- What's worse is that for a horror movie, it's not that scary mostly because of the whole atmosphere of the movie.
- The film is badly managed because due to its very short duration, more than half of the film is only the introduction and there are not even 30 minutes left for the horror scenes which makes it even more ridiculous.
- Alex and Samantha's romance is just lame, uninteresting, and just plain useless we take it out and it doesn't change a thing.
- Terrible and insane ending: The place was not the real place where the filming of Arthur and the Invisibles took place but a detailed reproduction which was made for roleplays with drug addicts which exceeded the limits of this genre which asks a lot of questions.
- Already to start, where do we get the murderous desires that are revealed by watching the Arthur and the Minimoys saga? See even where we have murderous desires by simply watching a movie? even in a horror movie, we all know it's FICTITIOUS!
- Moreover, if it was a huge role-playing game, did they reserve the land to build this set, and if so, are they aware that the space is reserved for them and that they must prohibit access? instead ?
- And above all, if it's a role-playing game, why do those who play the natives act like psychopaths?
- Moreover it just shows that the police are incompetent because they already know that these people are active and they are not even incarcerated in a mental asylum.
- The worst part is that it destroys the original concept promised in the trailer. The trailer had made us hope that it would be a horror movie that would be linked to the universe of Arthur and the Minimoys and it could have been interesting but that's just the universe they chose for their giant role-playing game where they kill people.
- All in all this movie is just a huge insult to the license of Arthur and the Invisibles even more so than the 2018 cartoon and just a poor attempt by Luc Besson to extort all the money the way he has made with The Transporter: Refueled and Taxi 5, this film simply destroyed Arthur's image and the unseen even more than the two basic sequels and the infamous animated adaptation.
Redeeming Qualities
- At least the movie has a pretty decent intro and a plot that works although it's cliched.
- All of the flaws mentioned throughout the movie can make it an excellent "so bad it's good" though it is clearly a "so bad it's horrible" movie.
Reception
Arthur, malédiction received extremely negative reviews from the public, critics, and fans of the license, few press titles have looked at the viewing of the film, which reflects a lack of appetite for this film of horror drawn from the world of Minimoys. Le Parisien, however, remains positive and speaks of a “film (which) takes its time to raise the tension and does not play one-upmanship, but the result is entertaining and effective”. For Les Inrockuptibles, "even if it looks like a desperate headlong rush that will probably be a landmark, Arthur, Malédiction has at least a certain audacity for him, and can, despite any form of good taste, s call without shaking the chin unheard of. ". Grand Ecran and Télérama are both very incisive concerning this film. For the first, “this absolute renunciation of everything that founded his cinema, Luc Besson eats his minim0rts”; for the second, we are witnessing "a game of massacre as imaginative as a credit card ticket, suffered by young unknown actors (including Thalia Besson, the producer's daughter) who probably did not deserve this".
The film holds a 3.2/10 on IMDb as well as a 1.8/5 rating on AlloCiné but on Senscritique, the film holds a dismal 2/10 tied with Samourais making it one of the lowest-rated films of the whole site.
Box Office
On its first day of release in France, the film garnered 16,578 admissions, including 426 previews, for 279 prints. It is positioned in 3rd place at the box office for new releases, behind the French comedy La Traversée (18,331), and ahead of the Korean crime drama Decision to Leave (13,738).
After the first week of operation, the film achieved 121,393 admissions for 8th place at the box office, behind the American thriller Black Phone (133,668) and ahead of Decision to Leave (103,303). The following week, the film fell to 10th place at the box office and garnered 49,397 admissions (170,790 cumulative admissions), behind Decision to Leave (60,344) and ahead of Peter van Kant (42,675).
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