WiseRatFlames An unexpected masterpiece

StyleSk8r At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

InformationRap This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Abegail Noëlle While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

altersaege I was attracted to this movie because of the Alchemist, which with that mask is indeed an interesting Villain. And I thought, with Depardieu it can't be that bad. I was wrong. All actors give horrible performances, way over the top. And while this was a main disturbing factor which prevented me from enjoying the movie, there was an even major disturbing factor, the way the movie is filmed, with a special (digital?) camera which supposedly grants excellent detail in close- ups at the expenses of the depth of focus, with the advantage of "easy and cheap" post-production special effects, like another reviewer wrote. Well, it seems like, you know when your grandma gets the new Chinese camera from the 1 Euro shop with all those useless crappy special functions to add watermarks or whatever to the pictures? That. The director is just playing (with incredible bad taste) with this special camera, abusing of close-ups of very over the top expressions of this or that actor, with the depth of focus and realistic look of a cheap video game, and with terribly cheap special effects (specially fire and explosions). Only well done thing, the mask of the alchemist. But nobody needs a whole movie for that. And the story itself was so childish, so low level, not well developed at all. This movie, with a real camera, with a real director, with some better actors, could have been excellent. But it is awful.

Quebec_Dragon It takes place in 1830 in Paris. Vidocq is the name of the main character who's based on an actual French historical figure that's considered one of the pioneers of scientific police (think CSI). He's played by probably the most famous French actor living today: Gérard Depardieu. Rather originally, the title character dies in the first 5 minutes of the film. The rest of the story alternates between the investigation of a journalist retracing Vidocq's steps and flashbacks of Vidocq's last case. The original screenplay was written by best-selling French mystery writer, Jean-Christophe Grangé. It was his first original screenplay, and he says it will be his last, and not because he wasn't happy with it. This last case of Vidocq involves the murder of notables by lightning strike. The journalist's investigation takes us from person to person in a rather linear fashion. The investigation itself is not particularly gripping, but there are a couple of big twists at the end. The "bad guy" sports a very cool mirror mask. The fantastical elements originate from the mirror mask person, not everything is real or scientifically explained.The special effects in general, with a couple of exceptions, are pretty well done, particularly the mask's reflections. It's apparently the first commercial feature film made completely with a digital camera (as opposed to a camera with film). This means that the picture quality, at the time, was crisper than usual, also giving it an unusual look. Lots of work has been done on lighting and colours. The colours are very vivid and favour the colours red, yellow and green. The decors are a mix of real life and digital trickery, they usually look very good and unlike your standard American films. Despite taking place in the 19th century, the editing is modern and very fast, with lots of very quick close-ups. I personally didn't like that style of frenetic cutting because the cuts often seemed unnecessary and made things either less involving or a little harder to assimilate. The characters seemed a bit on the shallow side to me, but then it's more about action, mystery and suspense with a touch of fantastical. Vidocq was compared to the film Seven but in 1830. It's nowhere near as good in any regard, except perhaps for visual style, very different anyway.The director, Pitof, was a special effects supervisor for most of his career (City of Lost Children, Alien IV) and his following project was directing the infamous Catwoman. It's likely he got that job because of Vidocq. I find that the director Pitof is not very good at telling a story, has trouble with pacing and making us care about the characters. Vidocq is worth renting (or buying cheap) for the spiffy visuals alone. Overall, the movie is not bad but not memorable either. It's likely that a more talented director (Burton, Fincher, Jeunet, etc) with the same material could have done a lot better.Rating: 6 out of 10 (Good) P.S. There are no portals, dark or otherwise.

kluseba Vidocq is a masterpiece and easily amongst the best movies of the last decade. There are several reasons for this but the most stunning one is the visual beauty of this movie that gives this flick an artistic, atmospheric and also surreal touch. I have never seen a movie before or after this one by Pitof that was so breathtaking from a purely visual point of view. All those experts that hail rather superficial movies such as "Matrix", "Inception" or "Avatar" should watch this one and get a good lesson about how modern films can be made without being too commercial, too soulless and too much filled with stereotypes. Note that this was also the very first feature film shot with the Sony digital 1080p 24 fps cameras to reach the screen.Off course, a good graphic can't save a film if the rest is mediocre. This leads me to the second act of brilliance within this masterpiece which is its thick and authentic atmosphere. The camera positions, the reconstruction of fascinating city between glamour and dirt, life and death, money and poverty and the great music featuring the Cello rock band Apocalyptica add a lot to the intensity of this movie. From the first moments on, you are into the movie and won't get out of it before a little bit more than one hour and a half. The movie is detailed but still gets to the point and has no unnecessary side stories, stereotypical love tales or anything else which seems just perfect to me.A third convincing point is the story that features some truly original murders, a couple of diversified and mysterious characters and a couple of twists in the end that may take you by surprise because to see them coming. I really thought that the ending was brilliant and better than any closure of a suspense movie or psycho thriller I have seen in a while.As a fourth point, Vidocq also mixes an addicting crime story, some adventure movie parts, suitable action scenes and a couple of drama sequences with a magic fantasy story that is still rather grounded than just exaggerated. The fact that this potpourri of styles works so perfectly makes this movie once again unique from a different point of view.All of this would guarantee a high rating about eight points but the two missing points are brought by the brilliant and convincing actors in the movie. From the young and naive role played by Guillaume Canet over the fatale femme role of Inés Sastre up to the desperate and rough character performed by Moussa Maskri, every single character has an addicting and unique style. The presence of the famous Gérard Depardieu is an entertaining detail and could help to attract a bigger and much needed audience that should not miss this movie.In the end, Vidocq excels on every level. It's sad that there hasn't been more movies of this kind because when I saw this film back ten years ago I was sure that it would influence and change the way movies are done in our world but it ultimately didn't. Still, I don't understand the reasons why because the movie is as stunning and modern today as it was in 2001. I could have also imagined that computer games in the visual style of Vidocq could have been made. If anything of this may one day happen, if there is a movie or game similar to the style of Vidocq, I will be the first to watch and purchase it. Vidocq is a milestone of the cinema for me. If you haven't seen this movie yet, don't make the mistake to wait and forget to check this out. This is one of those movies one must see at least once in a lifetime.

le_chiffre-1 I first saw this movie in 2002 or 2003, after it had come out on VHS. The other day, I rented the DVD. As I sat and watched this with my wife, we both asked, "Was this shot on video?" A trip to IMDb confirms that it was.The first time we watched it, we didn't notice it was shot on video, probably because the technology was so new and it was unfamiliar to us. But now, with the passage of a few years, we definitely noticed it and it looks CHEAP. When you take into account the other expenses that go into making a feature movie like this, the cost of film is such a small part of the overall budget that I don't understand why someone would compromise the entire project by recording it on something that looks as awful as video. There was a lot of hype over digital video at the time this movie was made and the producers probably got caught up in it, but the fact is, stuff shot on video just doesn't age well.Video may be fine for the evening news, reality TV, or porn, but when you're an artist, you should be concerned with the quality and look of your medium. I've heard people argue that video is better because it's cheaper and easier to shoot, and I've heard people argue that it can be hard to distinguish from film, but I've never heard anyone claim that video looks BETTER than film (because it doesn't). The argument for shooting video over film is entirely one of quantity and convenience over quality; a sad attitude for an artist to have. There's enough mediocre trash out there as it is.I can only hope that this trend of shooting big-budget movies on video is a fad. Though digital video has improved enormously since this movie was made, it's still not film and never will be.If it weren't for the choice of medium, this movie would've been great. It's such as shame, when you look at the amount of work that went into the sets and costumes, that they chose to shoot on video.