ThatMOVIENut Sort of a biopic-mystery based on France's most iconic literary criminal, the 2004 'Lupin' charts the gentleman thief's life from childhood to a youth of crime, where he (Romain Durais) becomes entangled in the machinations of a mysterious Countess (Kristin Scott Thomas), and a hunt for a rare treasure that spans years, in which time, he becomes romantically involved with an old childhood flame (Eva Green).Jean Paul Salome's adaptation can certainly be admired for its ambition, being an amply budgeted French action-adventure film, but ultimately suffers from an indecisive script that wants to be the Jack-Of-All-Trades/definitive Lupin film. It goes from simple popcorn treasure hunt fun, to a family drama to a romance to some kind of alternate history biopic, with the last 20 minutes feeling especially really rushed, and showing a lack of faith for the possibility of a sequel and future tales in the titular thief's life. It's as if they spent all this money and were so afraid the film would fail that they just squeezed everything that they could in from the various novels by Maurice LeBlanc to cover every facet of Lupin's adventures.Despite this though, and barring the final 20 minutes, the film still manages to be an enjoyable romp that is technical proficient. We even have some well shot action and good effects, such as a rather impressive bombing in a Parisian restaurant. On the acting front, Durais makes for a capable and energetic Lupin, and distinguished English actress Scott Thomas has a ball as the scene stealing villain/lover of Lupin. And hey, we even have a younger Eva Green here, so that's a nice bonus. And the icing on the cake is the majestic score by Debbie Wiseman. Dear Lord, this may be one of my favourite scores from 2004: it's stylish, sexy, mysterious and often very exciting, very befitting a film about a master criminal.In the end, this 'Lupin' may not quite get away with it, but enough strong elements overcome a cumbersome screenplay to make this a heist worth at least one try for those who want to see a more fun side of European cinema.

qeinar The movie is pretty OK, good actors, the scenery is awesome, but the adaption of the Arsene Lupin novels are pretty damn bad. Having read most of them (still have some left..) I still have not read anything about magic in them, which the witch in this movie could use.. also their idea to mash in some of the Lupin stories into one film is just bad, mainly because all of them are very loosely represented in the movie.. Personally i think just making up a new Lupin story would have made a much much better movie.Also in the books Lupin's first robbery was the very same necklace, but with no mention of his dad, and also he later sent money for his still living mother for a long time.All in all if your doing a movie out of a book/story you should try and stay partly true to it, and don't mix in tons of elements which make no sense what so ever.. most of the Arsene Lupin stories are at a good length and are therefore suited for making into a movie series.(most of the stories are short and they would not have to cut out a lot of stuff as they usually do with bigger books..) A Arsene Lupin movie series or TV series is something i would definitely watch if they had stayed true to the stories of Maurice Leblanc.

Mezcal1111 To me it looks like the director wasn't really sure what kind of movie he wanted to shoot. Sometimes it has some comic bits in it, like Lupins 'comic strip' movements or some well rehearsed one-on-one fights. But then he must have had some doubts as to what line to follow, because he started to use bits of splatter movie style, Indiana Jones adventure-archeology, historic drama, family tragedy and so on...then put everything in a big blender and press the mortal button. Mortal because what comes out of it is a shapeless blob of a movie with a story that has no head and no tail, and on top of that it's awfully looong too. positive: some good actingBeware: save your money and time

dbdumonteil Maurice Leblanc means a lotof things to me: I've read all his novels .Strange how little by little,they became very mysterious with an extraordinary sense of wonder whereas the first books were simple detective stories.That Jean-Paul Salome who butchered Belphégor just a couple of years before can tackle one of the most original series of books of the genre can strike horror into your heart.And however,in spite of a very poor rating at my time of writing,I will say that it's not that much bad after all.The actors are generally well chosen ,particularly Scott-Thomas ,the ideal countess.And the cast includes such luminaries as Matthieu Carrière and Robin Renucci .And the budget-which does not guarantee quality anyway-is not exactly what you call low-.Showing Lupin's childhood is not very new:see The Saint and Indiana Jones for that matter,not to mention good old Sherlock Holmes.And what 's amazing,for a character and adventures that are French French French (not to say Norman )to the core ,we have often the strange feeling of watching a made-in -Hollywood movie.Anyone who knows Leblanc's books will notice that ,although Salome and his script writers adapted "La Comtesse de Cagliostro" ,they also borrowed from other books: "l'Aiguille Creuse" ,"Le Bouchon de Cristal" (Renucci's eye) ,"813" (the banker's name is none other than Kesselbach and the safe combination is of course 813!"and even "la Cagliostro Se Venge" which showed the son (Clarisse's and Arsene's) fighting against the father (Arsène).And other users will probably find other snatches taken from other Leblanc 's books.The screenplay becomes some kind of jumble in spite of Salome's good intentions and what was finally a good idea to use elements from other stories became a terrible mess. :for example,I cannot forgive Salome for botching the scene when Lupin visits the famous Etretat Aiguille Creuse(there's a Lupin museum there in that Etretat town).In the movie Beaumagnan is Lupin's father -which is very difficult to accept - whereas in the novel he was simply his rival.It seems that the writers found their inspiration in "Star Wars" ,and their fights on the lighthouse or on the Aiguille Creuse make me think of Luke and Darth .Too many things happen,and it's sometimes hard to catch up with the plot,which is most of the time complicated instead of complex .Leblanc's books are deceptive:it is hard to transfer them to the screen badly (and Salome's movie,I say it again,has qualities:splendid settings ,nods to the readers, a good tempo)while being harder still to transfer them well.Even such a veteran as Jacques Becker failed ;the TV series 1971-1974 were an absolute nadir.The best came in the late seventies/early eighties with the made-for -TV 'L'Ile aux Trente Cercueils" and "Arsène Lupin Joue et Perd (813)"with an infinitely lower budget than Salome's extravaganza.Entertaining movie,but we are still waiting for the MOvie which will do Leblanc justice.