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Rarely you like a film so much, you want to reach for the creators and say "thank you". This is one of those rare moments. This episode made me choked up, made me laugh, intrigued and gave hope... A beautiful piece of television! I checked, and this is correct - the best episode of Black Mirror up to date, based on rating.

Thank you!

I saw director and writer Andrew Stanton at a lecture "How to Tell Stories" he gave in Moscow two days ago (the movie has opened in Russia yesterday and I just happened to be in town for the premiere). I admire Andrew for everything he did for Pixar and every word he said at the lecture felt right... But then I went to see the movie.

You guessed right, this is not going to be a positive review. But I wanted it so badly to be! One of my favorite directors, making a movie based on a book I tremendously enjoyed as a kid, with a decent budget for special effects.

But the movie sucked. Incoherent predictable clichéd melodrama with stale dialogue, pile up of flashbacks and boring - yes, BORING - action. I could not believe I am watching the work of creator of "Bugs Life", "Finding Nemo" and "Wall-E"!

And this is not a rant of a book fan, I don't even remember the book. And not complaint of betrayed high expectations, I didn't have much, based on poster and trailers. But what the heck happened to good storytelling? Why am I watching bunch of people I don't care about and didn't have time to find out about talking about some political intrigues inside of insanely unrealistic CGI sets. Why am I getting my own deja vu flashbacks from "Avatar", "Star Wars", "Cowboys and Aliens" and "Star Track" (and not in the good sense). How can a girl dressed in princess- Leia type costume be SO unsexy? How can be guy, leaping over mountains and crushing hundreds of enemies be SO unexciting? Why do I have to listen page after page of verbal explanations?

Why Andrew? Why?

Sincerely, your fan.

A French animation company decided to do a passion project, to show off their animating skills and make a few bucks along the way. They get some financial backing from French government and do everything in-house, using own resources and hiring few American voices to have international appeal.

At least, that how this movie comes across.

It has awesome visuals, landscapes and lighting effects are very imaginative and top notch. I guess that's what these guys do for living. Everything else is half-baked: characters are flat and uninteresting, story is done with the use of Disney cookie-cutter and the world they created lacks any logic or believability.

OK for Netflix Blu-ray rental (again, those landscapes!), but your kids will probably forget about it right after the end credits stopped rolling. Mine had.