So it's a fairy tale - but not one for (young) children - unless parents want to get into a discussion of what land mines do to people.Heavy duty documentaries make little impact - I think the gentleness and total lack of reality here is an antidote for the dead serious issue at the center. This reminds me a bit of Dr. Strangelove characters: yes, over the top but - so it's not as if the reality isn't perhaps more absurd. Not too heavy handed in my view - the audience doesn't really need to struggle to understand and that's okay.A bit Chaplinesque, as well. And an underdog story - common in the movies, but then all story lines are repeated, with different characters and context, and the question is - is it done well? Since in real life, the underdogs get slammed, it's nice to see them win in an engaging film.

I would love to love this movie, but I can't. While the colors and the characters of the movie are great, the storytelling sucks. Yes it has a story to tell, but the way it does is to obvious. I felt the wagging finger of the director for 2/3 of the movie and I hate it when that happens. On IMDb people tend to rate either with 1 or with 10 stars but as this movie shows, there are a lot of gray areas. It is possible that I did not understand the reason for the weird behavior of the characters, that I am not able to get the "real core" of the story, that ... Fact is, that I was exited about the trailer and was disappointed about the movie itself. Just watch it yourself and make your own conclusions.

This film succeeds on so many levels. Great cast, background, story, it doesn't blast you out with junk noise when they think you might not be following the story. And of course, excellent subtitles. The cast excel at a variety of faces and the editing and photography never fail. Would recommend this to anyone. Lots of little bits of business to giggle over and loads of snide comments about the armaments industry which should hit where it needs to. I'll be happy to add this to my titles on my DVD shelf. When I first caught this film it had already begun and I didn't know what I was getting into but it soon enabled me to catch on. Quite a bit of the action comes along without dialogue and there's no need for it. One to enjoy.

When video clerk Bazil ends up taking one in the brain-pan during a shootout (to which he was merely a witness), he ends up scavenging junk for a group of eccentric underground junkyard denizens. When Bazil decides to track down the arms dealer(s) whose handiwork resulted in his own injury (and his father's death, years before), MICMACS appears to be right on track- but this is no WAR, INC. MICMACS, unfortunately, begins to drift further and further into the type of way over the top fantasy that we've come to expect from Jeunet (DELICATESSEN, CITY OF LOST CHILDREN). Whatever political statement he might've made gets lost in the grandiose filmmaking. "I don't do politics," the arms dealer Marconi tells a client. Neither, apparently, does Jeunet (at least, not this time around) and it's an excellent opportunity he's squandered. There are some great lines throughout (the son of the arms dealer tells him he should work out when he mentions Rimbaud; the arms dealer tries to correct the misconception: "Rimbaud- not Rambo."). When Bazil turns to his junkyard pals 'n' gals for help (one of whom is "a twisted contortionist"), he must first explain the difference between "gaze and gays." Not a bad film, but one that only verges on being a truly great one.