La mecánica del corazón

This animation is definitely unique and different from any other animation I've seen! It is an artistic masterpiece, has a very clever story, unique music that I totally did not expect, and of course just absolutely wonderful animation! I do highly recommend this movie for the age group of 13 on up. I don't believe younger children will understand the story line.

I'm an artist and LOVE to see different types of animation as it helps me to sculpt and create differences.

Jack and The Cuckoo Clock Heart isn't as "dark" as some of Tim Burton's works, but still has a little gloomy feel to it. At first I wasn't sure I liked it, but seeing it through ... I LOVE IT!

I saw this in English. I suspect that a fair amount of nuance of the script, lyrics is lost in translation. Much of the film is incoherent if you think about, even more so than other fantasias. I am still not entirely sure what happened in the end. This largely works in the film's favor because the oddness of the text fits the visually whimsy. This feels very much like an early Burton film and it has same sense otherworldly quality.

The animation is gloriously expressive. They really push the style into some surreal and dream like images. It is a lot more striking then the generic photoreal stuff that you get in a ton of American animation. I might not understood what was happening at all times but I did understand the emotion-a rich melancholy-because the animation and the music let me know.

This was a very good film.

This whimsical animated french film about love is a delightful treat.

Jack is a boy who with a heart condition and mustn't feel any emotion in excess, you see he has a cuckoo clock for a heart. Jack and the Cuckoo Clock Heart is a fanciful tale from creator Mathias Malzieu.

Malzieu's Jack and the Cuckoo Clock Heart is a hopeless love story of a morose young fellow cursed with a faulty cuckoo heart. Not only that, this melancholic boy turned tormented teen falls in love for a girl with rose tendrils as hair who is visually impaired from crying tears of ice. The romance is doomed as his adopted mother Madeline informs him a single kiss could stop his ticking heart.

The poetic narrative twists and turns and Jack's troubles are Shakespearean, full of misguided choices and fallacious offenses. Some would say the adventitious plot is careless and designless but I think that is where the artistry lies.

The animation is dark and Gothic, decidedly Burtonesque with a Henry Selick or Laika quality yet simultaneously original. While CGI, the animation has a unique marionette picturebook characteristic. The characters are fresh and inexplicably bewitchingly fantastic – from a a bespectacled feline with metallic whiskers, a man with a xylophonic spine, to an angelic woman (women?) with wings and two heads. We don't actually know why this 19th century setting is so magical but it is imaginative enough to not care, especially when Jack lands at the carnival.

Unable to find the original French language version with English subtitles I was consigned to viewing the English dubbed version. While adequate I do wish I could have listened to the songs as they were written and the initially cast French actors. The music is lovely and moving and the English lyrics keep up.

More reviews of recent releases can be found at our website.

While the dialogue is a little muddled due to its French and English combination, that seems to be the only flaw of "Jack and the Cuckoo-Clock Heart." The animation is simply incredible. As George Melies, a character in the story, would put it: "A labor of love down to the last detail!" The characters themselves look like porcelain dolls, and the story is so captivating with its stunning visual effects and dream-like sequences. You are immediately drawn in by the active imagination of the hopeless romantic protagonist, and the struggle he faces while living with a mechanical heart. This film touches upon the same kind of romance as "Moulin Rouge," the stunning aesthetic of "Hugo," and the complexity of ice and love in "Frozen." At first glance it may look silly, but after giving it a chance, I was not disappointed. If you love musicals, animation, and a story that is heartwarming as well as heart wrenching, then you will absolutely love "Jack and the Cuckoo Clock Heart."

The visual animation of this movie is notches above the average Pixar and Disney fare, especially in its attention to details and inventiveness, framed from interesting perspectives with captivating clarity.

It started of with enough heart ('cuckoo' no-doubt) and sufficient bizarre to draw you in. Unfortunately, about a quarter of the way through the plot starts to falter with too many unnecessary songs that doesn't add to the story but only detracts from it - songs that are averagely catchy but tend to be repetitive and too pop-oriented to capture the essence of the movie.

The reason for all the intrusive songs is as follows from Wikipedia: "Jack and the Cuckoo-Clock Heart is based on the concept album by the French rock band Dionysos, and on the illustrated novel La Mécanique du cœur written by the band's lead singer Mathias Malzieu. The music of the film was entirely composed by Dionysos"

May have worked as an audio album, but for this movie, Luc Besson (one of two producers) should have instructed that the visuals and the story alone be allowed to do the "singing", backed by good inspiring theme music.

The English dubbing (from the original French) is definitely one of the better done ones - I suspect many (but not all) of the original French actors, also did the voice-over in English, including most (but not all) the songs.

Overall, would still strongly recommend this animation, if but for the visual feast alone!