As is often the way if you try to be everything to everyone you wind up being nothing to no one. Assuming that we actually needed another take on this character - who, especially in France, has been as well documented on celluloid as Sherlock Holmes, Maigret, Raffles or even Tarzan - then we could have started with someone a tad more credible. Romain Duris is one of those actors (Vincent Cassell and Benoit Magimal are others) cursed or blessed depending on your point of view with a built-in insolent, arrogant expression that probably makes certain females roll over and play dead but makes me reach for the sick bag. The script does him no favours by jumping about like a Time Traveller and invoking echoes of The Maltese Falcon and The Da Vinci Code via a Masonic cum Knights of Templar outfit and crucifixes instead of black birds. On balance it's risible more than thrilling and/or scary which is the wrong response to this type of fare. As others have remarked here the viewer is constantly conscious of time passing non-fruitfully.
Review of Arsène Lupin
