A Cat in Paris

(English dubbed version) Normally, if you title your movie “A Cat in Paris,” or a cat in anything, I expect a film that’s much more feline-oriented and less about the human animals. As it is, the purring protagonist here, Dino, is almost a supporting character in this animated cinematic crime caper. The other half of the title, a nicely rendered City of Light, plays its part in the production, though not to the extent and with such impact as in, say, Amelie. Mostly, Paris is a presence as a set of rooftops for much on the action to take place on. The human characters are okay, nothing special; little girl Zoe and her mother, a police superintendent, are the core characters, while a friendly neighborhood cat burglar, Nico, provides some balance and intrigue against the family drama. Less successful as screen presences are the gangster Costa and his henchmen, who come across as thorough cliches of English criminal types. (Yes, one of them is German, but who’s counting?) Perhaps watching this movie in an English translation is the reason it left something to be desired, at least as concerns the dramatis personae. As for the universal language, the animated visuals, the presentation is interesting but hardly groundbreaking. Much of the imagery is rendered as flat and geometric, with the humans especially looking a lot like Picasso painted persons (except their eyes are in the right places). All in all, this is an interesting if not absorbing movie, effective in its storytelling if a bit cliched and predictable (as befits an animated feature; this was clearly made for children, so complexity is not on the menu). And there’s just enough felinity in the proceedings to push the overall impression into positive territory. Vive le chat, if not the rest of it.