Reviews

Great actors, nice set-up and decors, original enough idea, a slow but relatively realistic start... so what went wrong? For one, it never really picks up rhythm. But mostly, it's because it loses any form of realism. You can either get crazy sci-fi stuff and you make a Guardians of the Galaxy or Star Wars film and no one will care about the tech aspects, or you can claim to make it right and hire Nasa consultants and whatnot. But not both. It's far from being as stupid as Ad Astra for instance, but still big enough mistakes to make you lose interest. Nearly ALL the issues the crew has (I won't spoil) would have been avoided with some common sense and more "space realism". And if a movie relies on its characters to be far stupider or careless than they should be to move the plot, there's a problem. Too bad, it could really have been nice.

I'm French and I just reread the chronology of the Revolution, so the names and events are pretty fresh in my mind... at least they were until I saw this movie. The main problem is that it doesn't seem able to find its genre and goal. Not focused enough to be family drama, not precise enough to be a documentary, not nervous enough to be an historical action movie, not neutral enough to be a political movie... In short, it never decides what it wants to tell and ends up not telling much. It's a succession of scenes, each quite OK but not making much sense together. The family we follow is a symbol of course, but come on, the same people being present at every single major event and political assembly of the era? Plus several things are shown in a strange way, like Robespierre being a calm and peaceful person? Marat (very well played!) as an actual friend of the people? Danton (not nearly ugly and fat enough) as a sort of enemy? Technically speaking the music sometimes feels off and is too present, and many filming tricks, down to the very font of the title panels, but also the framing and lights, are cheesy and seem to be from the 90's. Showing the Revolution from an ordinary family point of view would have been a very good movie. Seeing it from the kings' office was nice too. Making a documentary about the Convention, yep, it could work. All at once? Sorry but nope. It ends up too messy and confusing to be enjoyable, despite very good actors and pretty decent sets and costumes.