Arthur 3: The War of Two Worlds

A mild improvement over its two predecessors, Arthur 3: The War of Two Worlds follows the title character as he prepares for Maltazard’s (Lou Reed) impending invasion in the real world – with the film detailing both the buildup to the battle and, eventually, the battle itself. There’s no denying that Arthur 3: The War of Two Worlds, for the most part, comes off as a far more watchable endeavor than both Arthur and the Invisibles and Arthur and the Revenge of Maltazard, with filmmaker Luc Besson’s decision to limit the action to the above-ground exploits of the various characters playing an instrumental role in the movie’s extremely mild success (ie it’s hard to downplay the ineffectiveness of the stretches set within the Minimoys’ poorly-animated and visually-overwhelming domain within the first two movies). Besson, along with cowriter Céline Garcia, does a nice job of peppering the proceedings with a handful of unapologetically broad vignettes, with the sequence in which a now lifesized Maltazard attempts to pass himself off as a human being standing as one of the more overtly entertaining interludes in the film. The almost impressively over-the-top final half hour – devoted to Maltazard’s invasion of Arthur’s small town – certainly fits the bill in terms of spectacle, yet, like most other aspects of the movie, there’s just nothing terribly (or wholeheartedly) involving about all of this. It is, as such, not surprising to note that Arthur 3: The War of Two Worlds is ultimately unlikely to change the viewer’s perception of this middling series, which is a shame, really, as the film does possess a fairly decent number of stirring sequences (ie Arthur engages in a sword fight with a villain aboard a toy train).

** out of ****