Picturehouse Entertainment releases Arco in UK cinemas on March 20, 2026.
Synopsis
A magical and beautifully animated journey through time, Arco is a dazzling adventure about a 10-year-old boy from a peaceful, distant future who accidentally travels back to the year 2075 and discovers a world in peril. As Arco develops a charming and touching friendship with a young girl named Iris, they band together and along with her trusted robot caretaker Mikki, set out on a quest to get Arco home, while the two children may also be the only ones who can save our planet. A wondrous odyssey filled with hope and optimism for our future, Arco is an enchanting fable from breakout filmmaker Ugo Bienvenu, produced by Remembers’ Bienvenu and Felix de Givry, and mountainA’s Natalie Portman and Sophie Mas.
Review
Arco is a French produced animated movie with a very unique style of animation. Directed by Ugo Bienvenu, it focuses on a 10 year old boy Arco from the year 2932 who accidentally strands himself in the year 2075 after misusing his family’s time travel suits. There he meets a young girl named Iris and they work together to help him get back to his own time.
During their adventure though we’re given a subplot of three brothers Dougie, Stewie and Frankie, three quirky guys who know far more about Arco’s time travel than someone in 2075 should and are hot on their tail.
OK first thing to cover, the animation style. It’s quite unique and not a style I am familiar with. I am usually very interested in different animation styles and this was the main reason that drew me to Arco, but as the movie pressed on, I found myself not entirely enjoying the drawing style. I don’t believe there is anything inherently wrong with it, but it just did not grow on me.
The english voice cast was pretty impressive though, with the likes of WIll Farrell, Andy Samberg and Flea (from Red Hot Chilli Peppers) as the three brothers with Mark Ruffalo and Natalie Portman as the parents of Iris as well as their voices merged for the family robot Mikki. It’s a huge cast life, though with not much to do. Andy, Will and Flea bounce off each other well and have some comical scenes but Mark and Natalie were very minor.
Finally one of the saddest issues I found was its run time, at just 1 hour and 29 minutes long, it feels very short for the story it wants to tell. While it’s visually clear Arco and Iris have a close bond develop fairly quickly, it’s not really shown how they develop it so quickly. I feel more time could have been spent with them spending time together and growing closer together over a short passage of time and it’s just really quickly sped through.
Verdict
While Arco did not quite hit the beats I was hoping for, I do applaud for studios and animators trying new forms of storytelling and different art styles, Arco just feels like it just does not reach the mark for me to be memorable down the line.
⭐⭐
