Movies like Paris, Je t'Aime and the forthcoming New York, I Love You ask multiple filmmakers to create short films on a given theme, set in a given neighborhood of a storied city. It's a chance for directors and audiences to have a little fun, riffing on the history, stereotypes, and endless possibilities presented by a major city.

Tokyo! is a similar project, minus the fun (that perky exclamation point notwithstanding). The movie—an "omnibus triptych," the movie's website pretentiously asserts—features three shorts set in Tokyo from directors Michel Gondry (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind), Leos Carax (The Lovers on the Bridge), and Bong Joon-ho (The Host). What could two French directors and a South Korean have to say about Tokyo, and why should I be interested? I have no idea, and I'm not sure the directors involved with Tokyo! do either.

These three works lack any kind of thematic through-line, and simply placing them end to end does not inspire any particular insights about Japan's largest metropolis. Instead, we're treated to a very smug, very French spoof on monster films, bracketed by two almost-cloying interpretations of young love in the city.

The most interesting work here is Gondry's Interior Design, which neatly captures a young woman's underappreciated and ultimately unsuccessful efforts to support her filmmaker boyfriend. Interior Design is based on a comic by Gabrielle Bell called Cecil and Jordan in New York—there are multiple levels of translation at work here, from the adaptation of the comic to the change in locales and languages, and while it's handily the most successful of the three shorts presented, fans of Gondry may get the sense that he's not trying particularly hard.

Leos Carax's contribution, about a deranged, wall-eyed Frenchman named "Merde" who emerges from the sewer to rampage through the streets of Tokyo, is simply no fun to watch, regardless of how many stereotypes it lampoons. Bong Joon-ho, meanwhile, takes a lovely look at the obsessively ordered life of a hikikomori, a shut-in who refuses to leave the house—but when a pretty pizza delivery girl shows up at his door, a trite love story intrudes on the OCD stillness that is the short's strength.

If pressed to come to some sort of conclusion about Tokyo based on the films included here, one might determine that it's a little bit adorable, a little bit pathological, and a little bit shy. Or, more sensibly, you might conclude that Tokyo!'s imperfect parts don't just add up to a meaningful whole.