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Michel Gondry's "Be Kind Rewind" is whimsy with a capital W. No, it's WHIMSY in all caps. Make that all-caps italic boldface. Oh, never mind. I'm getting too whimsical. Maybe Gondry does, too.

...It's very moving as an idea or an ideal, though the lack of any sense of autonomous life in Be Kind Rewind, save in service to that ideal, killed the movie's attempt at contemporary Capra for me. (Melonie Diaz is good in a supporting bit, though—she should be in more things.)

Be Kind Rewind has a very particular, very American aim: that is, to be a Capra comedy. Only it’s really not all that funny.

Be Kind Rewind, is a sentimental, whimsical embarrassment set in the rundown, rust-belt New Jersey town of Passaic, where motor mechanic Jack Black and decrepit video-store assistant Mos Def have to recreate the cassettes accidentally wiped by Black while the shop's elderly proprietor (Danny Glover) is away.

This new movie, written and directed by Gondry, is probably his most uncomplicated, and the least burdened by the need to explain or embed its eccentricity in melancholy. It is simpler and happier than his previous movies The Science of Sleep and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and it's got some laughs, but also some baffling flaws...

In case you're still under the impression that Michel Gondry, he of all those Björk videos and "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" and the underappreciated (if you ask me) "Science of Sleep," is some hipster 21st century pop impresario, "Be Kind Rewind" ought to disabuse you of that.

Be Kind Rewind... is an unambiguous celebration of the state of preadolescent fixation. The movie is perhaps best understood as a 12-year-old boy: You want to give it a hug and then yell at it to pick up after itself.

Be Kind Rewind shows the best and worst of Gondry. The originality of his ideas is a constant wonder and, as the film progresses, it's an exciting wait to see what he'll do next... But his whimsical dialogue, and the performances he gets from his actors, is patchy at best.

Gondry isn't an especially skilled storyteller. The film has energy but no real pace. The characters don't grow so much as hang around, and his script frays into a bunch of loose strands. But the visual wit, game performances... and overflowing humanity have more than made up for the shortcomings by the time the film finds a final moment that's simultaneously abrupt and magical.

Gondry uses this premise to flip open the ribcage of cinema and allow us to peruse its blood, bones and sinew, and really see how they flow, fit and flex into a glorious whole.

This is a charming conceit, designed as a paean to the ramshackle; sadly, every minute of Gondry’s film is irrefutable proof that charm is not enough.

It may be full of madcap surrealism and clever-clever meta-cinematic touches, but it is also an unfashionably good-natured film with real heart. Oddball, endearing, and very, very funny, Gondry's film offsets its sweetness with just the right amount of sour...