The Inventor

The Inventor

The insatiably curious and headstrong inventor Leonardo da Vinci leaves Italy to join the French court, where he can experiment freely, inventing flying contraptions, incredible machines, and study the human body. There, joined in his adventure by the audacious princess Marguerite, Leonardo will uncover the answer to the ultimate question – "What is the meaning of it all?"

  • Released:
  • Runtime: 99 minutes
  • Genre: Animation, Drama, Family
  • Stars: Stephen Fry, Marion Cotillard, Daisy Ridley, Matt Berry
  • Director: Jim Capobianco, Pierre-Luc Granjon
 Comments
  • SnoopyStyle - 15 June 2024
    animated biopic
    It's 1516 Rome. Leonardo da Vinci is looking to skies. He has a complicated relationship with Pope Leo X. He befriends Marguerite who is the sister of French king Francis I. They put on a show to bring a new peaceful culture to Emperor Charles V and King Henry VIII.

    This is an animated biopic of Leonardo da Vinci. The animation is a mix of stop-motion and hand-drawn although they may have used CGI. The stop-motion reminds me of the old Rankin/Bass specials. This doesn't have a three act story structure. It is more a flat temporal flow. In that way, it is slightly educational while randomly entertaining. It doesn't give any drama. It's cute.
  • ecameron-50176 - 20 September 2023
    A delightful history lesson
    A delight, especially for those who enjoy history. This multi-style animated feature tells the story of Leonardo DaVinci's later life.

    Spurning trendy 3D-driven computer animation with its dense content and over-caffeinated dialog, this film takes its time, spreads out, and dives deeply and gracefully into "The Maestro's" Italy and France that he inhabits. The primary animation style is 3D stop motion puppetry, but there is nothing old and jerky about this production. The motion is smooth, the backgrounds lush and detailed, and the pace measured and deliberate. With the occasional nod to old-fashioned elements (DaVinci's mouth that magically appears atop his thick beard when he speaks, for example), the puppetry is truly state-of-the-art.

    King Francis I, King Henry VIII, King Charles I, and Pope Leo X all do the comedic heavy lifting. The scenes where the three monarchs repeatedly bicker and fight provide pure, fast-paced, and traditional animated delight, especially since these scenes are all stop motion. As the real world becomes too intense, threatening and ignorant to our hero, we are offered frequent glimpses of the world inside DaVinci's mind, and are treated with sepia-infused, gravity-defying, pencil animated scenes of pure joy, in an animated style reminiscent of DaVinci's famous sepia sketches come to life.

    The score is subtle, with a noticeable lack of big, defining tunes. Instead, the songs - mostly offered by the princess (arguable the most impressive character of the movie with her understated progressivism and uncanny and hilarious ability to manager her brother, the French monarch) - seem to start and stop seamlessly with the dialog. The score weaves from lush support, to hints of Renaissance music (hinting at the Elizabethan period to come as ushered in by our hero), to a bizarre but effective hook melody in a 6/8-3/4 time signature reminiscent of Bernstein's America.

    As said, a delight. An animated romp through Renaissance history with this tale teaching us that the primary agent of change, DaVinci, was no ordinary inventor.