Jack and the Cuckoo-Clock Heart stubbornly remains less than the sum of its parts. But its rich visual imagery suggests the talented artists involved could create something exciting and truly original if they had a better script.
Jack and the Cuckoo-Clock Heart(Jack et la mécanique du cœur)
✭ ✭ ✭ Read critic reviews
France, Belgium · 2014
Rated PG · 1h 34m
Director Stéphane Berla, Mathias Malzieu
Starring Mathias Malzieu, Olivia Ruiz, Grand Corps Malade, Jean Rochefort
Genre Adventure, Animation, Drama, Fantasy, Romance
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In 1874 Scotland, Jack is born on the coldest day ever, which stops his heart from beating. A midwife in Edinburgh saves him by replacing his heart with a clock. Little does Jack know: when he grows up, he has to face the fact he cannot fall in love because that could stop his delicate heart.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
The Hollywood Reporter by Leslie Felperin
This computer animated work has strikingly designed characters, and some good isolated sequences, but the script’s un bordel (French for shambolic mess).
Rather than linger on the project’s shortcomings, which only disappoint relative to the story’s incredible creative potential, it should be said that in partnership with Berla, Malzieu has created a fully realized, wildly imaginative storybook world and populated it with eccentric characters.
Slant Magazine by Rob Humanick
The film is at once enabled and hindered by its utter strangeness, an intrinsic quality surely exacerbated in its English-language release.
McClatchy-Tribune News Service by Roger Moore
There’s no humor and no pathos. The Cuckoo-Clock Heart, pretty as it is, lacks any heart at all.
Village Voice by Sherilyn Connelly
The characters aren't quite stylized enough; though they have skinny bodies and disproportionately big heads, their just-realistic-enough facial features often veer into the Uncanny Valley.
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