Bumbling Mr. Hulot (Jacques Tati) meanders around a modern, lifeless Paris, encountering tourists, locals, and other mirrors of himself at an office building and a trade show. Tati's Playtime is an impressive concoction, with expansive set pieces that play out like an ever evolving Rube Goldberg machine but is meandering and self-indulgent, similar to sentiments I had toward his equally regarded Mon Oncle. Again, the canvas is spectacular and easy to get lost in but it seems that the prevailing attitude is that composition is enough to hold viewer interest, and if that is the case, what essentially separates this from a Michael Bay movie?
*** out of ****
