For foreign movies I like to turn on the subtitles and listen to them in the original language, even if I don’t understand all of it. (4 year high school French down the drain …) As I was watching this DVD I didn’t notice for the first 5 minutes though that it was speaking English. What I did notice that the English subtitles and the English spoken words were not the match. Appearently two different persons did the translation for the dubbing and for the subtitles. It was rather disorienting. Then I switched it to French and all was well.
I can’t recall but I have seen some movies with similar ideas: A small closed community is not a natural village but an artificial breeding ground for creating a superior race of humans. Combining huge IQ with strong bodies. What goes wrong here is a series of murders, that Jean Reno is investigating. As he follows one body to the next one and deciphers the clues intentionally left for him we learn more and more about the University of this picturesque village in the French Alps. It is getting more and more gruesome and when a supernatural elements enter it turns towards an apocalyptic premise. And that is exactly what the sequel (coming out in 2 weeks) will be about. The shots of the countryside were gorgeous, Jean Reno can still do his cold face magic, the story was well built up, and the woman looked nice, what else would I want.