Fantastic movie. Yes, it has the word 'children' in the title, and there's quite a few children characters in it, but it's definitely not a movie for kids. 'The City of Lost Children' is the ultimate phantasmagoric movie. Lots of things in it don't make much sense, but it's okay, because you're just watching someone's weird nightmare. Hopefully it's not yours.

Original title: La Cité des enfants perdus

Directed by: Marc Caro and Jean-Pierre Jeunet (of 'Amelie' fame)

The fantastic visions of Belgian filmmakers Marc Caro and Jean-Pierre Jeunet find full fruition in this fairy tale for adults. Evoking utopias and dystopias from Brazil to Peter Pan, Caro and Jeunet create a vivid but menacing fantasy city in a perpetually twilight world. In this rough port town lives circus strongman One (Ron Perlman), who wanders the alleys and waterfront dives looking for his baby brother, snatched from him by a mysterious gang preying upon the children of the town. Rising from the harbor is an enigmatic castle where lives the evil scientist Krank (Daniel Emilfork), who has lost the ability to dream and robs the nocturnal visions of the children he kidnaps, but receives only mad nightmares from the lonely cherubs. Other wild characters include the Fagin-like Octopus--Siamese twin sisters who control a small gang of runaways-turned-thieves--Krank's six cloned henchmen (all played by the memorable Dominique Pinon from Delicatessen), and a giant brain floating in an aquarium (voiced by Jean-Louis Trintignant). Caro and Jeunet are kindred souls to Terry Gilliam (who is a vocal fan), creating imaginative flights of fancy built of equal parts delight and dread, which seem to be painted on the screen in rich, dreamy colors. (via amazon.com)

This is such a demented movie.I love it.

I had the pleasure of watching this last night. It has an interesting plot and some cool visuals. It's also a bit dark at times which I also like. The City of Lost Children isn't the most compelling film, but it's well worth owning or at least watching.

Directors Marc Caro and Jean-Pierre Jeunet guide us through a surreal steampunk version of France where a mad scientist called Krank is aging prematurely because he cannot dream. Attempting to self-medicate this Progeria-like condition, he encourages his henchmen, the "Cyclops," to steal children from the streets, dragging them back to his oil rig lair off the coast, so that he, in turn, may steal their dreams. The visual effects and Rube Goldberg sequences characteristic of Jeunet's style add a sense of whimsy and magic to this dark fairy tale landscape. Highlights: violent trance-inducing circus fleas, costumes by Jean-Paul Gaultier, and a brilliantly melancholy dark carnival score by Angelo Badalamenti, featuring vocals by Marianne Faithful on "Who Will Take My Dreams Away?"