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75The film is intended for family audiences. It is so gentle and whimsical that one wonders if American children, accustomed to the whiz-bang action of most animation, will accept it. Maybe there would be hope for the younger ones - but what will they make of the subtitles?
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63Tales, which (as the title suggests) is an "Arabian Nights"-style omnibus, has similarly eye-bending backgrounds but a creatively monochromatic foreground that comes to feel like a limitation.
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88Eighty-four minutes is about right for this style of animation. Even at that trim running time, the silhouette approach won't be for everyone. Ocelot's unity of vision, though, cannot be denied. Your kids, even the preteens, will likely fall headlong into his worlds.
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60The film feels naive for an audience that's ready for some harder truths.
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80A delight from start to finish.
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88More likely to play well with older children, due to its split-up story line, Ocelot's creation is like nothing else they are likely to see animating the multiplex.
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75Michel Ocelot's recent cartoons cleverly advance Lotte Reiniger's prototypical stop-motion technique into the digital age.
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Nov 2, 201250In each story the imagery dazzles at first, then becomes somewhat dreary; Ocelot's storytelling never quite matches his visual abilities.
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Sep 25, 201270The narratives - involving princesses, sorcerers, dragons, talking animals - are familiar. But Mr. Ocelot invigorates them with lyricism: silhouettes evoke shadow plays, and often brilliant palettes reflect the cultures presented.
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Sep 25, 201250The stories are quick, tiny surveys of a given culture's conventions told as monomythic, Joseph Campbell–ish pastiches and animated with fluidity and deliberateness that nearly excuses the film's slightness.
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Sep 24, 201260The pick-and-mix approach is limiting, but there's no denying these are gorgeous amuse-bouches, likely to be devoured by older, more discerning children and dyed-in-the-wool stoners alike.