In 1960, 10-year-old Arthur Montgomery lives with his grandmother Daisy in a quiet farm house on a dirt road, in a small rural community in Northeastern Connecticut (based on Sterling).

Daisy entertains Arthur with stories of his grandfather's adventures in Africa, featuring the tall Bogo Matassalai and the minuscule Minimoys, the latter of whom now live in Archibald's garden, protecting a collection of rubies.

When Maltazard learns that she has already kissed Arthur and thus can no longer give him her powers and cure his corruption, he imprisons all three, who discover a Minimoy form of Archibald.

Thereafter Arthur and his grandfather escape and return to human form, with little time to spare before Maltazard's flood reaches the Minimoys.

[6] After a screening test in the United States, The Weinstein Company (TWC) re-edited the film under the title Arthur and the Invisibles.

The entire storyline involving the parents and their greed for money was also deleted, reduced to a short scene and the narrator explaining that worrying over their son was all they needed to reform completely.

In addition to these deleted scenes, The Weinstein Company's version also adds in new narration by David Suchet replacing Ron Crawford's narration as Archibald, along with actors Jimmy Fallon (Prince Simono Matradoy), Jason Bateman (Prince Darkos), Emilio Estevez (Ferryman), Harvey Keitel (Miro), Rob Corddry and Nate Corddry (both voiced Seides), Erik Per Sullivan (Mino and the baby bug), and Anthony Anderson (one of the Koolamassai) replacing various actors from the original version.

The Minimoys featured in the first augmented reality Nestlé Chocapic cereal box with the help of Dassault Systèmes technology 3DVIA Virtools.

The site's consensus reads: "Arthur wastes its big-name voice talent on a predictable script and substandard CG animation".

[15] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 39 out of 100, based on 22 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable" reviews.

[17] Los Angeles Times reviewer Alex Chun wrote: "Director Luc Besson admits he knew nothing about animation before he started this project, and it shows".

[18] Variety's Robert Koehler called it "alienating and dislikable", and specifically noted that "…having African-American thesps Snoop Dogg and Anthony Anderson voice creatures that are basically humanoid monkeys shows poor taste".

[19] Many found it derivative of sources ranging from King Arthur and the Sword-in-the-Stone to The Dark Crystal and The Ant Bully films.

[21] Josh Tyler of Cinema Blend greatly disliked the film, giving it 1.5 stars out of 5: "Sure it has sometimes-loved French director Luc Besson's name on it, but the character designs look like they were stolen from those wispy haired troll dolls that were popular for about five minutes fifteen years ago, and the plot sounded like it was written by a ten-year-old kid underneath a heavy bedspread, with a big chief tablet and a pencil the size of a horse's leg".

In the UK and Ireland, both sequels were combined into a single movie, Arthur and the Great Adventure, released in December 2010.

[24] A video game based on Arthur and the Minimoys was marketed for PlayStation 2, PC, and Nintendo DS during the film's release in Europe in 2006.