As the cartoon ("Madeline", 1990) is intelligent and funny, as the film is a disaster! The scenario is very poor and déjà-vu and contains lots of mistakes or illogic and unbelievable things. (For example Uzbekistan was independent only after the fragmentation of the USSR thus had no ambassador when the film takes place!) But the most disastrous is the vision of France by Americans who seem to know nothing! Even if the story takes place in the 50s, many things are cliché. You will tell me: " yes but it is a movie for children, we don't care! " It is exactly where the problem is! Young Americans will believe that France is always like that and it won't help either France for its image or the USA for their knowledge of the world! The worst is to see that the movie wants to show that you should not judge people's appearances (I speak about characters of Pepito and Lord Covington) but on the other side it judges the customs and the life of the non-English-speaking countries (not only France) too fast! And what to say about the absurd mixture of the French and English languages? That adds a little bit of ridiculous to the movie, that's all! As a Frenchman, that even made me smile often by imagining first of all that Americans who look at the movie don't understand anything and then that some "bilingual" situations would be a little bit stupid in the true life! In fact it is maybe the only thing which made me laugh in the film! I don't understand how some Frenchmen agreed to co-produce this movie!
Otherwise the actors are mostly very bad: only France McDormand appears to be a little bit better (but we wonder why she was in this film so far from the spirit of the Coen brothers!), the French actress Chantal Neuwirth is rather good also (but the film won't allow her to go out of the anonymity in her country!) and the young Hatty Jones is only one more child who will certainly never play a leading role again even if her performance remains correct!
To finish let's speak about some positive points: the film manages to have a few feelings and the ending song is a good lively song for a film for children. Conclusion: 4/10 even if I admit that the children can spend a good moment!...
PS: I have nothing against Americans, I just have pity for them when I see that a lot of Americans know just their own country or their own state!
Otherwise the actors are mostly very bad: only France McDormand appears to be a little bit better (but we wonder why she was in this film so far from the spirit of the Coen brothers!), the French actress Chantal Neuwirth is rather good also (but the film won't allow her to go out of the anonymity in her country!) and the young Hatty Jones is only one more child who will certainly never play a leading role again even if her performance remains correct!
To finish let's speak about some positive points: the film manages to have a few feelings and the ending song is a good lively song for a film for children. Conclusion: 4/10 even if I admit that the children can spend a good moment!...
PS: I have nothing against Americans, I just have pity for them when I see that a lot of Americans know just their own country or their own state!