Arco

In the race for this year’s Best Animation Oscar, this hand-drawn Gallic sci-fi was always the rank outsider next to the zeitgeist-stealing Kpop Demon Hunters and box-office beast Zootropolis 2. But it has plenty of sparky charm, pops with colour, and an ending that’s more moving than either of them.

‘Dystopian sci-fi eco-fable for kids’ may not be the easiest sell, yet director Ugo Bienvenu and his co-writer, Eden lead actor Félix de Givry, have spun something distinctive and dazzling from those elements. Arco has an unflagging, Peter Pan-ish optimism despite being backdropped by a series of ecological catastrophes and absent parents.

It tells the story of time-travelling tyke Arco (voiced in the English dub by Juliano Krue Valdi) who lives in a futuristic utopia built on tree-like platforms above the clouds. His parents and older sister use kaleidoscopic flying capes powered by a magical jewel to soar off on time-travelling adventures. The 10-year-old Arco is officially too young to fly but he really wants to see the dinosaurs. Sneaking out one night, he pitches himself headfirst into the unknown and hopes for the best

Soon he’s crash landing into an ecologically-ravaged 2075, separated from his jewel but encountering Iris (Romy Fay), a lonely young girl keen to help. With her sassy domestic robot Mikki (Mark Ruffalo and Natalie Portman sharing voice duties), and Iris’s school pal Clifford, he has to find a way back to the future, braving a colossal wildfire and the attention of the authorities. 

Arco’s hand-drawn animation gives major ‘Gallic Ghibli’

Arco’s hand-drawn animation gives major ‘Gallic Ghibli’, although the story itself ducks and weaves without the soaring ambition of a Miyazaki tale. After a visionary bit of sci-fi world-building that introduces hologrammatic spider phones, weatherproof house domes and three eccentric brothers (Will Farrell, Flea and Andy Samberg) also hunting the diamond, it slips into a more conventional escape adventure that echoes E.T. the Extra Terrestrial.

More affecting is the Spielbergian preoccupation with missing parents – Iris’s are constantly away for work, checking in via hologram, and Arco’s are in the future, fretting over their missing child – and those threads come together beautifully in the final moments. 

The message is uplifting – that the future is what we make it (rather than, say, that we’re all going to perish in a massive geostorm) – and the helter-skelter action keeps the screen filled with colour and excitement. Director Bienvenu, who also voices helpful robot Mikki in the French version, has crafted a family film that’s offbeat and full of heart. 

In UK and Ireland cinemas Fri Mar 20.