Tale of Tales

IFC Films | Release Date: April 22, 2016

6.5	USER SCORE Generally favorable reviews based on 71 Ratings

USER RATING DISTRIBUTION

Positive:

Mixed:

Negative:

Watch Now

Buy on

Stream On

Expand

Review this movie

VOTE NOW

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Please sign in or create an account before writing a review.

Check box if your review contains spoilers

0 characters (5000 max)

User Reviews

User score By date Most helpful

MightyPDKApr 24, 2016

It's beautiful, with great costumes and sets. The musical score was good. It's always nice to have a break from pop, and a specially-composed soundtrack is indicative of a work of love. Interesting camera work, too, though pacing suffers in aIt's beautiful, with great costumes and sets. The musical score was good. It's always nice to have a break from pop, and a specially-composed soundtrack is indicative of a work of love. Interesting camera work, too, though pacing suffers in a few spots due to overly ambitious shots (patience being a lost knack, and all). This maybe could have been fiddled with a little more in editing, but nothing worth complaining about. Top points on aesthetics.

The storytelling is a bit of a mess, however. Taken individually, a few of the subplots might have made interesting short films, but shoehorning them all together like this didn't really work for me.

Many of the characters are royalty, and I constantly felt myself asking, "Doesn't he/she have someone else who would be better suited for this task?" I am pretty sure that there are servants/soldiers/anybody else who would be more effective and more appropriately dressed for some of this stuff. That can likely be attributed to the source material, and maybe a little to the fantastic costumes. Ladies, I don't know how you ever got around in those outfits. I think you just earned a physical education credit from wherever you went to school. Call the dean and check. Tell her an anonymous stranger from the Internet sent you. We go way back.

Performances occasionally felt quite wooden. At times, it was like watching a marionette show rather than actual people. Impressive when you can plunge the audience into the uncanny valley with real, live actors. That wasn't constant, though. Characters do bizarre, uncomfortable and impossible things, so it's not as though we're thoroughly committed to reality in the first place.

If you enjoy films for the sake of art, or have an interest in folk legends, go for it. If you're looking for a fantastic popcorn adventure, you should maybe look elsewhere. The role of "protagonist" is spread a bit too thin across so many (effectively) unrelated characters. I didn't really get to know any of them in detail and so didn't get emotionally invested.

Throw some money at the people who made this film. Artistic vision means too little these days, and this movie had it by the bushel. Remaking older movies is lazy, and usually unnecessary. The artists here took something they knew and loved from their own cultural experience, and shared it with us.

My number score is not fully reflective of how I feel about this movie. If we're being honest with ourselves, this number stuff is all nonsense, anyhow. The score isn't indicative of quality until years after the marketing efforts end, and even then, each "critic" has his/her/its own scoring philosophy.

"10" ratings and "0" ratings can be fully disregarded. Those are only worth reading if they are less than a full line long, and only because you read them by accident, anyway, as you scrolled past.

"0" means there was no movie. Some dude just loaded a blank VHS tape in a VCR, hit play in a room full of confused art house movie patrons, and walked off to go have a smoke and a bit of a laugh. (They pretentiously discussed his "art" with him at the wine and cheese thing after.)

"10" means that it was perfect. The universe held still in its course at the moment of the cut on the final take, an in-drawn breath, before drifting regretfully back into unstoppable inertia, forever thereafter. If that movie exists, I haven't seen it yet. Maybe it was Pluto Nash... I guess I'll never know. (It was Pluto Nash, wasn't it?)

My 5 means that the combination of flaws dragged on enjoyment, but didn't stop things dead. I don't regret having spent the time. About half of the movies that I have seen are better, and about half are worse. Fair? (Just kidding. I don't care whether you think so, and you absolutely shouldn't care that I don't care. Go spam a few more 9 and 10 scores from your alt accounts, and it'll be like I never even voted *wink*.)

I would see more. The Internet cries out for more! What shall this crew bring for us next?… Expand

0 of 1 users found this helpful01

All this user's reviews

kman5473Apr 24, 2018

If you're a real film lover, and you love watching obscure and new tellings of visual art, than you'll enjoy this eclectic trio of fairy tales. Having said that, this feature is definitely not for the "mainstream" pallet by any means. TheIf you're a real film lover, and you love watching obscure and new tellings of visual art, than you'll enjoy this eclectic trio of fairy tales. Having said that, this feature is definitely not for the "mainstream" pallet by any means. The pacing is much slower and meandering compared to what is popular right now, but I enjoyed it. The film had great set design and art pieces, but it's not really like a blatantly fantastical fantasy--it is shot and depicted almost like a historical fiction with some bizarre creatures in it.… Expand

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

All this user's reviews

TyranianFeb 3, 2020

Somewhat interesting fantasy anthology with excellent visuals though almost uninteligible stories.

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

All this user's reviews