There is a lot to praise in this movie, but the main praise to any film is that time flies when watching it, so entertaining and enchanting is.
The animation looks like old style hand-made Miyazaki's, both in detail of de drawing, style, fluidity of the images, quirkiness of the characters, and action. Still has a very special feeling, which is both very European and very American.
It is remarkable that an animation movie without princes and princesses, fairytale love stories, or young characters can be so appealing to people of all ages. In fact, the characters are a group of old women, an overweight dog, and some nasty Mafiosi. If this was not enough, the characters rarely speak, just mumble a few words, make guttural noses, and sing some songs. The story is entertaining, quirky and original enough to keep the viewer interested and entertained, and the characters are very expressive, like the old silent movies, despite their lack of language. That is a lot to say.
The movie has an awesome soundtrack by Benoît Charest inspired by golden-era Jazz and Motown classics, plus some classic music pieces that perfectly convey the atmosphere of New York in the 1920s-1950s. In fact, the recreation of New York as Belleville has a lot of art-deco with a twist of European Disney (the skyline of Belleville resembles a European castle), plus a contemporary projection of the image of Americans in European mentality (the inhabitants of Belleville are morbidly obese) creating something that is oddly beautiful and original.
Especially brilliant are the scenes of the crossing of the Atlantic, the watching of human programs in TV by the cartoons, the diet of the triplets, and, above all, the surreal black and white dreams of Bruno the dog.
The only thing I did not like was the car persecution at the end, which I found childish and hurriedly resolved, and the end of the movie.
This is a brilliant movie with a delightful script for people of all ages with lots of winks to adult viewers.
