Arthur 3: The War of the Two Worlds (2010)

There is a particular kind of fatigue that settles over the professional classifier when confronted with a third installment in a French children's fantasy franchise that was shot back to back with its predecessor and then quietly shuffled onto home video in the United States. Arthur 3: The War of the Two Worlds arrives with a seven-foot Maltazard, a two-inch Arthur, and a plot that involves retrieving an enlarging potion from a suburban house. Luc Besson directs. Lou Reed voices the villain in his final acting role. Iggy Pop voices the villain's son. This is the entire cultural payload.

The film concerns itself with size. Arthur must grow back. Maltazard has already grown. Followers are enlarged, a queen bee supplies an Elixir of Life, and a U.S. Army detachment eventually overwhelms the forces of evil. We might expect a metaphor to surface from all this inflation and shrinkage, some comment on power or scale or the anxieties of smallness. None arrives. The mechanics are mechanics. Princess Selenia accompanies our hero, offers support, and shrinks the antagonist at the decisive moment, all without a single gesture toward the broader questions of her station. The Black actor cast as the chief of the Matassalai appears, delivers his function, and departs unremarked. The film has no interest in him beyond the costume.

What we have here is a lightweight adventure assembled from books Besson wrote himself, budgeted at nearly sixty-nine million euros, and received with a shrug in most territories. The reviews were mixed in France and considerably worse abroad. It lectures no one. It critiques nothing. It does not ask us to reconsider our assumptions about capital, climate, bodies, minds, or the historical record. It simply moves its pieces around the board until the credits. There is something almost restful in that. Almost.

{"thematic_tags": ["sequel", "book_adaptation"]}