Bigbug moves in a strange no man’s land between robot satire and silly children’s movie ★★★☆☆

Man loses out in Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s eighth film big bug, a science fiction comedy painted in candy cane colors that moves in a strange no man’s land between robot satire and silly children’s film. Watch the TV show that the characters in big bug are increasingly amazed, Homo Ridiculus, featuring Robocop-like robots that treat people like animals, supported by a laugh track. In the first episode people act as two horny dogs, later a man plays a bull in an arena where a robot bombards him with spears.

In the distant future where big bug Set, Jeunet’s Netflix debut and his first film in nine years, a handful of people find themselves locked in a house after the artificial intelligence that runs the world goes haywire. The home computer (a variant of HAL off 2001: A Space Odyssey) of Alice considers it too dangerous to be outside and hermetically seals her home. Thus it appears big bug a film in which a collection of people – and a number of household robots of varying intelligence – have to make do with each other. This results in a remarkably sultry atmosphere at Jeunet, especially when the air conditioning fails.

Yet you gradually wonder whether it is not mainly Jeunet himself who is done with people. During his career, the French director, 68 years old, has devoted much attention to his sets, to detailed explanations of cause and effect, to the sensory representation of objects. Sometimes he is so in love with his own ideas that he drowns his characters. More often that approach works well or even enchanting. See how Amelie in Le fabuleux destin d’Amelie PoulainJeunet’s biggest hit and most hot-blooded film, the crust of a crème brûlée pierced with a spoon. Jeunet is regularly a master film-maker, specializing in detail portrayed with the greatest precision.

In big bug the witty fictions stand on their own and the characters barely survive. Even more than in his two most recent films Micmacs a tire-larigot (2009) andThe Young and Prodigious TS Spivet (2013). Immersing yourself in Jeunet’s signature creativity is still not a punishment – see only the futuristic kitchen appliances as a loving tribute to Charlie Chaplins Modern Times – but the fate of man is indifferent.