[7] Krank (Daniel Emilfork), a highly intelligent but malicious being created by a vanished scientist, is unable to dream, which causes him to age prematurely.

The children are kidnapped for him from a nearby port city by a cyborg cult called the Cyclops, whom in exchange he supplies with mechanical eyes and ears.

After the carnival manager is stabbed by a mugger, One is hired by a criminal gang of orphans (run by a pair of conjoined twins called "the Octopus") to help them steal a safe.

It reaches One, Miette, and the diver, and the latter remembers that he was the scientist who made them, and that the oil rig was his laboratory before Krank and Martha attacked him and pushed him off it to take it for themselves, leaving him for dead in the water.

The diver regains his senses as everyone is rowing away and pleads with his remaining creations to come back to rescue him, but a seabird lands on the handle of the blasting machine, blowing up him and the rig.

The website's critical consensus reads, "Not all of its many intriguing ideas are developed, but The City of Lost Children is an engrossing, disturbing, profoundly memorable experience.

[11] According to authors Jen Webb and Tony Schirato, the dual nature of capitalism constitutes a main source of tension in the film: On the one hand, capitalism is presented as enabling self-interest and freedom, as exemplified by the freedom to produce scientific developments (Krank), pursue religious ideas (the Cyclopses), and seek wealth (the Octopus).

On the other hand, it exposes the deplorable effects of capitalism ... the exploitation of childhood (the cynical orphans), of tenderness (the Original scientist, attacked and turned out by his own beloved creations), and of innocence (the terrified children whose dreams are stolen) while suggesting that there is no place in capitalism for originality, disinterestedness, duty, self-reflective analysis, and other defining aspects of "the human".

[14] As The City of Lost Children "proceeds in full awareness that the past to which it is committed never really existed", the film has been classified as an example of the steampunk genre.