Arco

 Arco, the feature debut of graphic novelist Ugo Bienvenu (System Preference), rounds out this year’s animated Oscar lineup. Let’s finally see how it is.

In the 30th century, people live like The Jetsons and travel in time with rainbow robes. Our hero, Arco, is too young to join his parents and sister on their travels. So, he steals his sister’s time-traveling gear and heads off to the Jurassic. But he only gets as far as 2075, where catastrophic weather is about the average, but people can wait it out in protective bubbles. That’s where he meets Iris, a girl his own age.

Arco and Iris spend the rest of the movie trying to get him back to the future. They face a few complications, such as Arco missing his time-traveling diamond, a trio of bumbling alien-hunters (Flea, Will Farrell and Andy Samberg) who have it, Iris’s robot housekeeper Mikki (Mark Ruffalo & Natalie Portman; the latter is also one of the producers), and a looming wildfire. That’s pretty much it.

As I previously said, this movie is French, rather than an anime as Amazon thinks it is. You still might see shades of Hayao Miyazaki as Arco soars through the sky, talks to birds and spends time with Iris. And much like a Miyazaki film, it's visualized with a splendid color palette and marvelous scenery. Its human designs are more realistic than Miyazaki's, as if they were traced from actual people, but they're easy to get used to. Mikki's design is transplanted from System Preference, as if one of its drawings came to life (yeah, that's basically animation, but still). It's pretty easy to guess the narrative mechanics during its 88-minutes, but they left me wanting to know more.

Arco and Iris carry the film wonderfully with their friendship. It's fun to see them learn about each other's time periods, stage his first attempts to fly home, and even evade the robo law. It's hard to feel nothing when it's finally time for Arco to go - especially after a major twist lands. Meanwhile, the three stooges are basically this film's Team Rocket, but they're not only harmless but are actually nice guys. The actual villain surprisingly enough is Mikki, even if it doesn't realize it's doing more harm than good. Then again, Arco's ahead of time existence caused it to crash earlier, so maybe it's a bit justified? Still, despite their faults, you wouldn't want harm on anyone here. Someone doesn't make it to the end, though.

Anything else? I thought there would be a deeper meaning to Mikki speaking with the voices of Iris's mostly absent parents (Portman and Ruffalo are also them). But that's not explained here. The catastrophic weather of Iris's present is the film's scariest imagery. It's only a few decades away, and considering the monster snowstorm the Northeast just had, who knows how long before the weather then will be the weather now. 

Anyway, I leave it to you to see Arco whenever and however you can. It may be short, and a bit slight for some tastes, but it's still sweet and splendid. Next up, I'll begin looking into this year's bunch of nominated shorts. But I've said enough here.