It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

It takes place in 1830 in Paris. Vidocq is the name of the main character who's based on an actual French historical figure that's considered one of the pioneers of scientific police (think CSI). He's played by probably the most famous French actor living today: Gérard Depardieu. Rather originally, the title character dies in the first 5 minutes of the film. The rest of the story alternates between the investigation of a journalist retracing Vidocq's steps and flashbacks of Vidocq's last case. The original screenplay was written by best-selling French mystery writer, Jean-Christophe Grangé. It was his first original screenplay, and he says it will be his last, and not because he wasn't happy with it. This last case of Vidocq involves the murder of notables by lightning strike. The journalist's investigation takes us from person to person in a rather linear fashion. The investigation itself is not particularly gripping, but there are a couple of big twists at the end. The "bad guy" sports a very cool mirror mask. The fantastical elements originate from the mirror mask person, not everything is real or scientifically explained.The special effects in general, with a couple of exceptions, are pretty well done, particularly the mask's reflections. It's apparently the first commercial feature film made completely with a digital camera (as opposed to a camera with film). This means that the picture quality, at the time, was crisper than usual, also giving it an unusual look. Lots of work has been done on lighting and colours. The colours are very vivid and favour the colours red, yellow and green. The decors are a mix of real life and digital trickery, they usually look very good and unlike your standard American films. Despite taking place in the 19th century, the editing is modern and very fast, with lots of very quick close-ups. I personally didn't like that style of frenetic cutting because the cuts often seemed unnecessary and made things either less involving or a little harder to assimilate. The characters seemed a bit on the shallow side to me, but then it's more about action, mystery and suspense with a touch of fantastical. Vidocq was compared to the film Seven but in 1830. It's nowhere near as good in any regard, except perhaps for visual style, very different anyway.The director, Pitof, was a special effects supervisor for most of his career (City of Lost Children, Alien IV) and his following project was directing the infamous Catwoman. It's likely he got that job because of Vidocq. I find that the director Pitof is not very good at telling a story, has trouble with pacing and making us care about the characters. Vidocq is worth renting (or buying cheap) for the spiffy visuals alone. Overall, the movie is not bad but not memorable either. It's likely that a more talented director (Burton, Fincher, Jeunet, etc) with the same material could have done a lot better.Rating: 6 out of 10 (Good) P.S. There are no portals, dark or otherwise.

Sad to say that this movie just arrived at our DVD store (video store no more) and I was surprised that it was made so long ago. Having said that I was transfixed from beginning to end. The close ups where definitely in your face and for some might take a little getting used to, as was the from beneath shots. But it gave one such an interestingly intense view of the whole story. Although set before the revolution it had a futuristic quality. The script draws you in as the story unfolds. From the moment of Vidocqs death until the unveiling of The Alchemist. (So who amongst you guessed?.) From the selling of your daughters, the street workers, jugglers and vendors to the powdered and wigged aristocracy. Each character larger than life (hence the close ups. Living in opium dens or grand homes, showing victims and abusers ripping off the flesh of the downtrodden women of the poor, the lowest of the low. Actually various reviewers have likened this to a number of movies but for me Mirrormask is the closest, if it resembles any. And although I haven't seen Gormanghast, I imagine that this is what that book should look like. Surreal, colourful, grimy, cruel and wrapped up in the basest of desires. The search for eternal youth. So great movie with a lot to discuss over dinner or a cafe latte.

I gave 10 just to improve the rating, because this movie is freeway better than average level. May be the story is quite trivial, but the picture is brilliant! Almost every frame is like from paintings of great artists, the colours, gamma are like from masterpieces of Gustave Courbet or Eugenie Delacroix. You can fill the atmosphere of that time. After seeing the movie, I was quite curious and sniff the Web for extra information about Vidoque as a person. Reading some articles I found that Eugène François Vidocq was real man, who lived 1775 – 1857, he became from a criminal to one of the first private investigators. There are some unbelievable and magic stories about him. By the way, it was interesting to know that the story has routs. So that I think it's great movie. Alexei Karaghiaur, artist

I thought that this movie could be very different from over the top American movies because it's french. Well i was a bit disappointed, because it's just too much over the top. The special effects are twice as beautiful than in American movies, this movie is just painting or an art in its own. Every scene is like an advertisement in television, and visually very intense and demanding to follow. Colours are vivid and they create a certain atmosphere.But what this movie succeeds in the visual side, it lacks in the deepness and in the story. The characters seem too shallow, the dialogue is very superficial from time to time. However when you adjust to the movie's different approach you can get a hold of it.I'm pretty puzzled over the fact that this movie has unnecessary action scenes. Really! It'd been more efficient if the bad guy with the mask had had a discussion with Vidocq than unrealistic fighting which we viewers are very accustomed to. Of course there should be fights, but this movie tries to be in the horror and action genre and it's just too lame because it'd been done too many times before.It's so much harder to make good and impressive dialogues between the bad guy and the hero than just generic fighting with special effects.This movie clearly isn't a horror movie, it's fantasy and thriller.I enjoyed this movie because of it's new approach to the visual side, it looks like a computer game. It's a pretty good and impressive movie if you don't analyze it all the time. "Plenty of cakes are beautiful from the surface.", i just can't avoid the feeling that this movie is just way too shallow.