Il était une fois... un crime

It is likely that when you scroll through the reviews you will find people completely loving this movie and some completely bashing it.

I know, I know - nothing new in what I'm saying...but hold on...

When I watched this movie, I loved it for a different take on how the Little Red Riding Hood and Cinderella story flows. It starts off very similar but soon it deviates from the conventional plot we all know.

Half way down the movie, this turns into a completely different story. It sort of turns into an investigative courtroom drama, which some might appreciate and some won't.

As the story progresses into the final phase and the truth is revealed it is likely that your mind might like the movie, but your heart might not.

If you like experimental movies where you are willing to see your beloved characters in a different light, you will love it.

On the other hand, if you are a purist and prefer the traditional plot, this is going to be a bad experience.

First of all the actors were all great. They were trying so hard to sell it, especially the older ones going ham on their roles trying to turn it into a cartoon/anime.

The wardrobe deserves a shout out, everything on screen was beautiful and unique.

Then you have the actual plot and execution. This... this is insulting even at a child's level, it's beyond just bad. Execution wise there is way too much dead space in the shots that the movie feels empty most of the time. Shots linger far too long on the actors doing nothing that it just comes off as awkward.

The twist at the end was a fun one. It just didn't makes sense within context.

It had potential, I like the cartoonish sense of humor, but it needed better writing and a decent editor.

This movie has a great thought out story, real emotions and otherwise do not take itself too seriously. If you like Gintama and other similar anime, then you will probably enjoy this movie a lot. It has good quality in all aspects in my opinion.

But if you want a traditional Hollywood style movie, then this is definitely not it. People who has never seen anime will probably be very confused about this movie lol, and thus the low score ?

Also better with the original audio and not the dub (in my opinion at least).

This movie might not be for the majority of people (especially if you do not like anime), but will be a fun watch if it is your nisch (basically like anime and fairy tales I guess). It is a really good movie for what it is meant to be.

TLDR: Its basically a japanese murder mystery drama told through a lot of narrative, with a fairy tale backdrop.

I love the name "Once upon a crime" so I had to dive in. While I'm not generally a fan of grim/fairy tales in general (even if told is some edgy new-age way), I gave this one a chance because honestly, I had nothing else to watch.

I was pleasantly surprise the spin they took on the 'Cinderella' story. The ending genuinely surprised me. You have your expectations of how these stories will end (both the fairy tale and the murder mystery), but this one had a decently good twist to it. Definitely something to watch if you're into Japanese type murder drama. Probably not something that would fly too well with American audiences.

Its fun, its whimsical, its different. Its okay.

This is... wild. 'Once Upon A Crime (2023)' is a spin on the classic Cinderella tale that asks the age old question: "what if Red Riding Hood was in this and she was a detective who became involved in uncovering the truth behind the murder of a royal hairdresser?". Just a classic "what if?" situation, really. What starts out feeling like it's for five-year-old children soon takes a bit of a (seemingly unintentional) turn as it tosses a dead body into the mix and just keeps getting more sinister from there. It's not as if it ever switches gears entirely into grown-up territory, but it definitely starts to veer away from what initially seems to be its target audience (while, at the same time, kind of playing exclusively to it).

The whodunnit is a colourful, camp pantomime that lacks any real semblance of cinema and feels as though it belongs on a cheap kids channel but is also kind of weirdly awesome in its own way. It's essentially the wildest case Phoenix Wright never took on, feeling like a JRPG in the best ways possible. Honestly, I kind of like a lot of it. It's never exactly good in any real sense of the word, but it undeniably has this strangely compelling quality that keeps you floating in the space between bemusement and boredom for its majority. If you take it for what it is, there's some genuine - if slight - enjoyment to be had.

And then there's the ending. I don't really want to spoil anything - well I do, but I don't think I should - so all I'll say is that it wraps up in an incredibly frustrating way and treats a particular like absolute dirt even as it establishes that they didn't really do anything wrong (mistakes were made, sure, but the lack of sympathy here is appalling) and that they're every bit as poorly treated yet genuinely lovely as they first appear to be (even though they did something bad, they clearly aren't a bad person). It just leaves an awful taste in your mouth because you can tell the movie itself doesn't think it's doing anyone a disservice, which further reinforces the implication that the story's classist messaging isn't exactly an accident (even if its meek final moments seem to be an effort to prove that it's actually against the classist attitudes its characters hold). The ending drops the ball so badly that it actively affects how I rate the overall movie.

Ultimately, although there is some fun to be had here and there, this is a bizarre and generally quite bad picture that totally botches its ending. I must say, though, that its fairy tale costuming is absolutely heavenly.