Smoking Causes Coughing is an absurdist French comedy that’s somehow about something very specific without being about anything at all. It’s what you get when you crash Power Rangers with an episode of Seinfeld. Commence head scratching now.

The flick is about a team of spandex-clad superheroes called Cigarette Force who battle rubber-suited monsters. After their last fight, their rat sensei puppet sends them on a team-building retreat where they hang out and tell “scary” stories around a campfire.

None of this actually makes sense, very little “happens” and very little of it is actually funny. I mean, it’s weird and absurd and if that’s inherently funny to you, then it’s hilarious… but no one is outright telling jokes. The movie takes its lack of substance very seriously.

The movie contains at least three independent “horror” stories that are mainly just nonsense head-scratchers. And before you think you have the structure of the movie down (each hero tells a story) even that’s short-circuited by a talking barracuda.

None of these scary stories are actually scary any more than the final act’s struggle against the evil bad guy is thrilling. Or interesting. Or remotely serious.. If you come away from that showdown with a perplexed blank stare as the credits roll, then I think you are on the movie’s wavelength.

Does this film get a good review? Yeah… maybe? It also rates an average, below average, and bad review. So I gotta pick one and it’s good review. Because nothing matters, nothing happens, and nothing in general. I guess.