''Phantom Boy'' is a 2015
animated
Animation is a method by which still figures are manipulated to appear as moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent celluloid sheets to be photographed and exhibited on film. Today, most anim ...
fantasy film
Fantasy films are films that belong to the fantasy genre with fantastic themes, usually magic, supernatural events, mythology, folklore, or exotic fantasy worlds. The genre is considered a form of speculative fiction alongside science fiction f ...
directed by
Jean-Loup Felicioli
Jean-Loup Felicioli (born 1960) is a French film maker. In January 2012, he was nominated for an Academy Award for the movie ''A Cat in Paris''. He also directed ''Phantom Boy''.
Born in 1960 in Albertville
Albertville (; Arpitan: ''Arbèrt ...
and
Alain Gagnol
Alain Gagnol (born 1967) is a French film maker. In January 2012, he was nominated for an Academy Award for the animated movie ''A Cat in Paris''. He also directed ''Phantom Boy
''Phantom Boy'' is a 2015 animated fantasy film directed by Jean-L ...
and written by Alain Gagnol. The film stars
Édouard Baer
Édouard Baer (born 1 December 1966) is a French actor, director, screenwriter, film producer and radio personality.
In 2009, he participated in the French television programme ''Rendez-vous en terre inconnue''. On 5 March 2015 he appeared with S ...
,
Jean-Pierre Marielle
Jean-Pierre Marielle (12 April 1932 – 24 April 2019) was a French actor. He appeared in more than a hundred films in which he played very diverse roles, from a banal citizen ('' Les Galettes de Pont-Aven''), to a World War II hero (''Les Milles ...
,
Audrey Tautou,
Jackie Berroyer
Jackie Berroyer (born 24 May 1946) is a French actor, comedian and writer.
Filmography
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Berroyer, Jackie
1946 births
Living people
French male film actors
French male television actors
20th-c ...
, Gaspard Gagnol and Noa Bernaoui-Savreux. The film was released in France on October 14, 2015, by Diaphana Films.
Plot
11-year-old Leo, dealing with
cancer
Cancer is a group of diseases involving abnormal cell growth with the potential to invade or spread to other parts of the body. These contrast with benign tumors, which do not spread. Possible signs and symptoms include a lump, abnormal b ...
, reads a bedtime story to his younger sister Lily, before sharing a special secret with her: the illness has given Leo
the ability to separate his spirit from his physical body, allowing him to hover and fly through the air in an intangible, invisible, and impalpable form, with his body remaining mostly asleep. He refers to this state as a "Phantom", but if he spends too much time away from his body, he will begin to fade away before disappearing entirely.
Meanwhile,
NYPD
The New York City Police Department (NYPD), officially the City of New York Police Department, established on May 23, 1845, is the primary municipal law enforcement agency within the City of New York, the largest and one of the oldest in ...
Lieutenant Alex Tanner is demoted by his boss, Captain Simon, and assigned grunt work after he manages to catch two burglars robbing a
supermarket
A supermarket is a self-service Retail#Types of outlets, shop offering a wide variety of food, Drink, beverages and Household goods, household products, organized into sections. This kind of store is larger and has a wider selection than earli ...
, but blows up part of the building in the process. Leo is taken to the hospital for more tests, as his illness worsens. He laments over the loss of his hair and follows his mother home as a phantom. She weeps over Leo's health but does not let Lily see her cry.
That night, a strange man with a greatly disfigured face makes a phone call to the Mayor. He proceeds to cause a
blackout that affects all of
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
: he informs the Mayor the blackout was done by a powerful
computer virus
A computer virus is a type of computer program that, when executed, replicates itself by modifying other computer programs and inserting its own code. If this replication succeeds, the affected areas are then said to be "infected" with a compu ...
he has put into the internet, that will destroy the entire city's infrastructure in the next 24 hours unless he receives a payment of one billion dollars. While the man refers to himself as the King of New York, newspaper outlets begin calling him "The Face". Tanner attempts to apprehend The Face at the docks but is outsmarted and left for dead under a broken crate.
Tanner is taken to a hospital, where his phantom encounters Leo's. Leo guides Tanner's phantom back into his body, as Leo has done for countless other patients, just as Tanner's phantom starts to fade. When Tanner awakens, Leo is amazed to find that Tanner remembers his phantom, as all other patients forget. Tanner meets with Miss Mary Delaney, a reporter with an anonymous lead as to the location of The Face. Leo convinces Tanner to let his phantom tag along since Tanner's leg is still broken.
Mary is ambushed by The Face but manages to escape with the help of Leo's phantom and Tanner (via telephone). Then the two blackmail The Mole, an ex-con on
parole
Parole (also known as provisional release or supervised release) is a form of early release of a prison inmate where the prisoner agrees to abide by certain behavioral conditions, including checking-in with their designated parole officers, or ...
, to help Mary look for information pertaining to The Face's whereabouts as Leo's phantom follows. When his phantom returns to the hospital, Leo sees his parents crying and Lily reading to an imaginary version of Leo so she does not get lonely.
The Face captures Mary after The Mole fails to rescue her and is knocked unconscious. The Big Guy and The Little Guy, The Face's henchmen, arrive at the hospital with orders to kill Tanner. Tanner manages to gain the upper hand but The Big Guy runs off with Leo's body. Leo's phantom is able to return just as hospital security arrests the two hitmen. Leo's phantom follows The Face's dog back to the docks. It leads Leo to a ship called ''Vizir'' where Mary is held captive.
Nearing
midnight
Midnight is the transition time from one day to the next – the moment when the date changes, on the local official clock time for any particular jurisdiction. By clock time, midnight is the opposite of noon, differing from it by 12 hours. ...
, The Face leaves Mary onboard the ship and detonates a bomb. She frantically attempts to stop the virus by guessing the password that will shut it down, eventually succeeding when she realizes from The Face's words that the password is "Eyelids". Tanner and Leo's fading phantom help her escape the sinking ship but The Face returns, enraged over his plan destroyed. During the confrontation, The Face lashes out at his dog, resulting in the dog attacking him. Mary makes it off the ship as it finally sinks.
Leo's phantom races back to the hospital but disappears just outside the building. Spiritless, Leo's body falls into a coma. Tanner, guilty about Leo endangering his life to save Mary, tells her about Leo's abilities. Lily reads one of her bedtime stories to Leo's body, and his spirit is able to return. He tearfully reunites with his family.
Some time later, Tanner's leg has healed and he begins a relationship with Mary. He receives a call from Captain Simon informing him that the Mayor wants to congratulate him with a ceremony and a promotion, much to the Captain's dismay. Back at home, Leo finishes reading Lily a bedtime story and gazes out at the New York City skyline.
Voice cast
Release
The film premiered at the
2015 Toronto International Film Festival
The 40th annual Toronto International Film Festival was held from 10 to 20 September 2015. On 28 July 2015 the first wave of films to be screened at the Festival was announced. Jean-Marc Vallée's ''Demolition'' starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Naom ...
on September 12, 2015.
The film was released in France on October 14, 2015, by Diaphana Films.
Reception
On review aggregation site
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...
, the film holds and approval rating of based on reviews, with an average rating of . The website's critics consensus reads, "Stunning animation and old-fashioned charm more than make up for a relative lack of narrative depth."
Metacritic
Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...
, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 66 out of 100 based on 18 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews."
References
External links
*
*
* {{Rotten Tomatoes, phantom_boy
2015 animated films
2015 films
2015 fantasy films
2010s animated superhero films
2010s French animated films
Belgian animated fantasy films
French animated fantasy films
French superhero films
English-language French films
English-language Belgian films
2010s superhero films
Animated teen superhero films
Folimage films
Anifilm award winners
2010s English-language films