The Pope asks the inventor, “Why can’t you be satisfied with just painting pretty things for God?” But Leonardo hardly has time to answer. He is driven to investigate the cosmos. He wants the answers to life’s deepest questions. He is warned, “Don’t you worry that your desire to know everything might be dangerous for you with the Pope?”
Jim Capobianco – famous for working on animation greats like “The Lion King,” “Toy Story 2,” “Monsters, Inc.,” “Finding Nemo,” “Up,” and “Ratatouille” – is finally in charge of his own film. “The Inventor” is about the last three years of the remarkable genius Leonardo da Vinci. From pre-release interviews, we see the filmmaker is obviously in love with his new animation feature, but will it fly for the general public?
Using a variety of animation techniques to depict both reality and Leonardo’s soaring imaginative spirit, “The Inventor” is a film in over-do. Capobianco and his team have just gone beyond the expected PG-rated norm, displaying a da Vinci with wings, musical productions with flying stars/suns and comedic jousts. A troll-like helper hides with a cadaver in a pile of straw and gravediggers wonder what’s happening to their corpses.
Throughout the film there is comedy and the ridiculous. But what is the Capobianco team’s purpose – to experiment with a variety of animation presentations or to tell a story? I hear a shout-out that it is both, but does one overshadow the other? As the English teacher I am, I remind authors to focus on their purpose, develop their characters, and clearly illustrate a struggle. Make us care.
In “The Inventor,” does anyone, in or out of the movie, ever care about Leonardo or his pursuit of life’s most burning questions? Possibly all the humor and falderol bouncing around in scene after scene is to get the children’s attention, but will they stick around to understand the story of da Vinci’s last three years of life, spent in France not fully following his benefactor’s instructions?
Yes, da Vinci is hunting for the soul and the meaning of life while dissecting cadavers and inventing war machines. He draws and makes a small model of his idea of a perfect city with waterways for transportation based on the same interconnections as in the human body. His thinking is ground-breaking!
He asks, “What lives on after death? Where is the human soul? What makes us who we are? What is our purpose?”
But the story! Telling about da Vinci’s thoughts, drawings and models is good, but do we ever care about the man and do we ever get answers? Are we so over-stimulated and distracted with animation techniques and flights of fanciful songs that the story, ideas and characterization of the inventor is buried?
The bottom line is that “The Inventor” ends up more like a self-indulgent project of experimental animation creativity in extremis than an inspiring film about one of the greatest geniuses of all time. Perhaps it is perfect for a graduate class interested in creative animation, but so far, the low box office returns confirms my guess that “The Inventor” film just couldn’t find an audience.
Credits
Director/Writer: Jim Capobianco
Co-Director: Pierre-Luc Granjon
Composer: Alex Mandel
Producers: Robert Rippberger (p.g.a.), Martin Metz, Adrian Politowski, and Jim Capobianco
Cast: Daisy Ridley, Stephen Fry, Matt Berry, Marion Cotillard
Released: Sept. 17, 2023
Rated: PG
Official Website, trailer and how to watch: https://www.theinventorfilm.com/
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