We’ve been seeing imagery from Ugo Bienvenu’s animated debut Arco for a few months at this point, as the film began making its tour of the festival rounds. (You can read A.V. Club film editor Jacob Oller’s take on the film, which attempts to marry some Studio Ghibli vibes to Bienvenu’s particularly French aesthetics, here.) Now, those of us in the unwashed masses can see the film in action for ourselves, with the trailer, released today by distributor Neon, laying out both its star-studded cast, and its basic premise: A boy from the far-future tries to go flying through time, only to strand himself in the distant past of 2075.
Credit to the trailer editors: Those things that are obviously cool about Arco are clearly on display here, including its world of children being raised by robots, and the bright splashes of color that surround its title character. We also get plenty of glimpses at the interaction between Arco and native-to-the-time-period Iris (played, respectively, by Juliano Krue Valdi and Romy Fay, doing time amidst a much more stacked cast of voice performers that include Natalie Portman, Mark Ruffalo, Will Ferrell, America Ferrera, Flea, and Andy Samberg). It’s harder to get a sense of the tone—although the tidal wave of on-screen accolades directly comparing Bienvenu’s movie to the work of Hayao Miyazaki is certainly trying to bridge that gap—but it’s clear that some of this childhood whimsy is going to get mashed up with a more traditional MacGuffin hunt. (Also, we have to note that it’s very distracting to be watching a trailer like this and suddenly hear Samberg’s very distinctive voice come bursting out of a character’s mouth, but such are the inevitable issues when Hollywood decides to throw money at an offbeat project like this in the form of big-name performers.)
