Welcome to Marwen

I didn't find it creepy -- maybe I'm just creepy!

With Welcome to Marwen, director Robert Zemeckis, as he has so often in this stage of career, focuses more on the visuals of a story instead of the why of it.

The partnership between Zemeckis and Carell is ... what keeps Welcome to Marwen from falling off its own high wire-and finally brings the movie home.

It's a fascinating, multi-dimensional true story whose compelling complexities get frustratingly smoothed out... Engaging on the eye but, ultimately, something of a misfire.

See it, then seek out the 2010 documentary Marwencol.

Even if it falls just short of providing both joshing fun and thoughtful rumination, it's still heartening to see Zemeckis finding a new gear we perhaps never thought he had.

A frustrating (and frankly boring) mess.

Marwen was written and directed by the technologically obsessed Robert Zemeckis, who brings Hogencamp’s world to life in a way that is uneven with its real-life subject.

The film never manages its tonal shifts that well and the intimate story it is trying to craft that focuses on a man desperately trying to cling to stability and preaching acceptance of the outsider never comes through.

When Robert Zemeckis makes a bad film, it's always an interesting failure.