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Based on the French literary equivalent of Sherlock Holmes, The Adventures Of Arsène Lupin sees the eponymous hero (Romain Duris) as a dashing jewel thief, liberating high society gals from their sparklers. Arsène has a jolly old time of it until he rescues femme fatale Josephine (Francophile Kristin Scott Thomas) from certain death. As a result, he's sucked into a sinister royalist plot to uncover hidden treasure and restore the French monarchy in what's an uneven, but gutsy adventure.

There's also a hint of witchcraft to spice things up as Josephine weaves her feminine magic across Arsène's heart, binding him to her cause. It's then a race against time to uncover the three crucifixes that will reveal the location of the loot. The action tears along at breakneck speed, but plot holes abound and the story begins to collapse under its own weight. Improbable coincidences and poorly-explained motivations are rife, while sloppy plotting leaves you wondering whether you dozed off for a few minutes and missed something. Historical consistency isn't the film's strong point either as half way through and entirely out of nowhere Arsène becomes the proud owner of a fully-staffed prosthetics laboratory.

"MORE TACKY THAN FLASHY"

Despite this, the glossy production values make everything shine, the atmosphere is thrilling and the punchy direction comes from the same school of thought as Amelie's Jean-Pierre Jeunet. However, even this falls down with the unnecessary use of computer-assisted zoom shots a la David Fincher which look more tacky than flashy. Scott Thomas adds some meat to the hammy performances but even she flounders as the film becomes more Dogtanian than Three Musketeers, and as one bemused character remarks, "So much for explanations." Quite.