The Empire (2024) review

The northern coast of France appears to be serene place, but unbeknownst to the 'normal humans' there's an intergalactic conflict underway between two groups of space creatures (the 0's and the 1's), with several of these entities in disguise on Earth - Jane (Anamaria Vartolomei) and The Queen (Camille Cottin) are up against Belzébuth (Fabrice Luchini) and Jony (Brandon Vlieghe) - and there's a small child named Freddy who may be the "Prince of Darkness" ... so it's a good thing twitchy investigator Van der Weyden (Bernard Pruvost) and his assistant Carpentier (Philippe Jore) are there to look into the case.  This is notorious provocateur Dumont's attempted riff on fantasy and science fiction movies - Jane and her cohort Rudy (Julien Manier) even wield lightsabers to lop off heads! - only doing it with his usual gang of non-actors and local misfits (which he's done since the beginning of his career), except the cutting from rural life to CGI spaceships floating around is off-putting, it doesn't exactly work as a parody (although there are a few humorous moments) and it's unclear what political point (if any) he's trying to make (the "final fight" is supposed to "eliminate all races but one").  It concludes with a glorious piss take as a black hole wipes the combatants out and lil' Freddy declares the show is over: kids do like those ubiquitous Marvel and DC releases you know....