Avril et le Monde Truqué (2015)

Directed by Christian Desmares & Franck Ekinci. Starring (voices) Marion Cotillard, Marc-André Grondin, Philippe Katerine, Bouli Lanners, Jean Rochefort, Benoît Brière, Anne Coesens, Olivier Gourmet, Macha Grenon. [PG]

In a steampunk-influenced alternate history of 1941 France, the Nazis aren’t a threat, but scientists kidnapped by cyborg soldiers to perfect an invincibility serum and build some sort of doomsday weapon are. Two of those scientists are the parents of Avril, the heroine of this story, who stumbles upon the serum formula, a message from her father, and the discovery that her long-lost grandfather, another scientist, has been in hiding for the last decade, all of which plunges her into danger, intrigue, the usual stuff. With an art style inspired by Jacques Tardi, and a nimble, stylized sense of imaginative escapism that feels equally inspired by Miyazaki and Hergé’s “Tintin”, Avril is good fun at times, although with key information withheld from the audience for long stretches, the meandering story is stretched thin with convolutions meant to sweep us into the mysterious adventure, but mostly just feels busy for the sake of busyness, deprioritizing the character work and detailed world-building a fantasy like this craves. I didn’t mind the way the science fiction parameters of its premise are strained—in a world where electricity has yet to be successfully harnessed, there are laser weapons, and a serum creating a talking cat as a sidekick is one thing, but big talking komodo dragons in mech suits is a little much in this sort of largely recognizable dystopian environment—although I felt the exciting visuals and the fresh protagonist were deserving of a more unique and “pragmatically weird” narrative. Released in English-language markets as April and the Extraordinary World, with voice dubbing by the likes of Paul Giamatti, Tony Hale, J. K. Simmons, and Susan Sarandon, among others.

67/100