Ruben Brandt, Collector

Ruben Brandt, Collector is an intricately plotted, hyper-stylized piece of eye candy with art - the love of, the need for, the inability to escape from - at its wildly beating heart.

A satisfying heist movie, animated or live-action, requires more selectivity and less clutter than this one. The movie dashes by door after door, but it lacks the key.

It merits being counted as one of the decade's best and most wildly original animated triumphs.

If you love art, "Ruben Brandt, Collector" is a non-stop visual fest, from the first frame till the last.

Writer-director Milorad Krstic pads out what probably should have been a fascinating animated short - about an art therapist who is himself tormented by nightmares featuring characters from famous paintings - with drawn-out bits of ludicrous action.

This is Krstic's first feature and it's obvious that he has visual flair to spare. If he can only find a story worthy of it, he'd have a real work of film art.

It is joyfully inventive and utterly strange.

You'll want to watch this more than once just to catch all the references. The imagery will seem familiar but like Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse this movie takes familiar images and tropes and forms them into something fresh and exciting.

... even if its considerable invention lies strictly on the surface, that surface constitutes an impressively ambitious and imaginative leap...

A feast for fine art aficionados and movie buffs.