The French-Belgian-Canadian co-production "April and the Extraordinary World" has one unfortunate flaw: its title. I cringed when seeing the title card the first time I saw the trailer. It seemed like a nice little steampunk family adventure, why would have such a disgustingly generic name? There are a handful of other films and cartoon shows that already use the title "X and the World," and adding "Extraordinary" in there doesn't say anything about the story. The original French title loosely translates to "April and the Fake World," which seems a much more fascinating title in what it implies, while keeping enough mystery to not give away the plot.Regardless, I do think the filmmakers (and its tasteless English promotional team) did strive to hide the plot as much as possible. It's an ambitious story from the start, involving government conspiracies and ground-breaking science experiments with special serums and lightning in the setting of an alternate 1930's France. To summarize the base of the plot, April is a young women with two skilled scientist parents, both of whom were killed when chased by mysterious government agents for their project. April lives alone with a talking cat (its intelligence part of her parents' experiments) in an abandoned tower, trying to read over old notes from her parents to continue the project: a serum that cures anything and can lead to eternal life. When she finally makes a breakthrough, she too is on the run from the government, with help from a new (potential) boyfreind and finding herself traveling far outside the city to places that no one knows exists.It's a surprisingly good adventure, and even if much of it follows the typical archtype you would expect from a steampunk-inspired science-fiction story, the parts that are unique help make it feel inspired. This includes the reveal in the final act that explains to what end the scientists (and a secret group) want to use the serum for. It is meant for nothing less than allowing life to continue despite the human race's path towards violence on itself and the planet, and is explained in a way that actually feels smart, when most other stories tend to avoid giving an explanation to how one would go about saving the world. The ambitious ending is well-thought out, making good use of characters that might initially have seemed like window-dressing. However, despite the strong directing in the scenes, the story's entertainment value does rely heavily on not knowing where it is going next. I suspect after multiple viewings, its novelty will diminish. Of course, it is rare for modern audiences to watch any movie more than once or twice thanks to the sheer amount of entertainment available, so perhaps this isn't an issue. On the other hand, some parts of the story also seem slightly far-fetched, as if multiple movies were combined into one, despite foreshadowing in the opening scenes. If I told you now that there exists a sentient race of intelligent super-lizards in this film, would you believe me? How about an extinct dinosaur capable of time travel? One of these two things appears in the film, one does not, and from the perspective of a first-time viewer, both would seem equally out of place.
Anyhow, the production values are generally impressive, especially the detailed environments and distinct art style in character designs (said to be inspired by the artwork of French cartoonist Tardi according to Wikipedia). The film as a whole doesn't necessarily reach the heights of a Disney movie, but it comes a lot closer than most European animated features ever reach, a great benchmark for other animated films to compare themselves to in the future. The English dub provided for the American release is acceptable, but not extraordinary.As a whole, "April and the Extraordinary World" is a fascinating family film with a good female lead, and makes up for any stereotypical trappings with a handful of legitamite surprises. It isn't quite memorable enough to be a classic, but is good fun during the time you watch it.