New Asterix is unfunny and un-French, say critics.

It's usually a good idea to see a film before reviewing it, but the critical trashing inflicted on this week's new mega-movie is a story in itself -- especially after our recent salute to French culture. 

For months, France has been bludgeoned with pre-launch publicity for Astérix at the Olympic Games, the third feature made since 1999 from the cartoon adventures of the plucky Gaul. The first two, produced by Claude Berri, scored at the box office and the critics quite liked the second, Mission Cleopatra, which sold 15 million tickets in 2002. That version, directed by Alain Chabat, benefited from the subversive humour of Jamel Debbouze, a comedian from the banlieue. It was full of in-jokes and turned the Gauls-versus-Romans theme into a satire of modern France.

The trouble was that the film did not travel, at least not much beyond French-speaking Belgium and Quebec. The French sense of humour didn't work for the Germans and Russians, let alone Britons or Americans. This time, they are taking no chances. The new Astérix, a 78-million euro epic packed with stars and special effects, was de-Gallicised to appeal to the widest non-French audience.

It has stars and guest cameos ranging from Alain Delon and Gerard Depardieu to the sporting millionaires Michael Schumacher and Zinedine Zidane. Schumacher of course drives a chariot. The film is opening this week in 6,000 cinemas, from Moscow to Madrid, borne on a 20 million euro tide of Hollywood-style marketing. This includes promotion in 6,000 McDonalds' restaurants in 43 countries. The main exception is Britain, which has so far resisted the film exploits of Astérix, Obelix and Idéfix, their dog. Three copies of the film are due for British release at an undecided date.    

The French critics have greeted this homogenised Euro-product with a chorus of abuse. "Anaemic, tepid stew with no ideas...you will be disappointed," said le Parisien. France Soir called it "a classic turkey". The highbrow le Monde dismissed it as a "vacuous gigantic stewpot leaves you feeling unwell." Les Inrockuptibles, a hip entertainment weekly, had fun rubishing it as an "inept sketch that inspires lethal boredom." Delon's Julius Caesar, for which he was paid 1.2 million euros, was a pathetic exercise in self-congratulation, it said. 

Lamenting the weary gags and dreary chariot chases, the critics have accused the producers of dumbing down a franchise that was never exactly high quality. Thomas Langmann, the 35-year-old producer and co-director, has neutered the spirit of French comedy and crafted a product for the common euro-denominator. "A not very Gallic potion" said le Figaro. "Asterix and Obelix have been reduced to walk-ons".

Langmann, who is the son of the venerable Berri,  has been defending himself in le Parisien. "I love the humour of Chabat, but his film did not work abroad," he said. "Either you talk to 60 million people in France or to a 300 million potential audience in Europe. I chose the second option. That's why we included parodies of Russel Crowe's Gladiator and Star Wars in the script."

To add appeal, Langmann cast local stars from the good Astérix markets. He enlisted Spain's Santiago Segura, Michael "Bully" Herbig, a German comedy actor-director, and the Italian comics Paolo Kessisoglu and Luca Bizzarri. Astérix is played for the first time by Clovis Cornillac, a popular French actor, while Depardieu plays his third Obélix.

Trying to explain why test audiences did not laugh much, Langmann said that his film was aimed at children and family entertainment. Not surprisingly given the promotional din, the film's opening yesterday drew full houses at the 67 cinemas of the Paris area. We'll see later if this un-French Astérix works.

Clips from the film, including its opening minutes, can be seen here.

[Delon plays his imperial self as Julius Caesar]

Comments

[LN]

Edit: it's rather Russel Crowe's Gladiator (and not Troy)...

[prudence eely bond mcguire]

Just a glimpse of the magnificent Alain Delon is worth the price of admission to me!

[azloon]

hard to reconcile the present, slightly bloated Alain Delon with the lithe, bare-chested villain in the 1950s(?) film 'purple noon' ('en plein soleil,' the french title as i recall).

i carefully avoid looking a photos of myself forty years ago. perhaps Delon won't watch this 'sorry ass' flick either.

[Rich]

I saw it in Calais last night - Delon's appearance as Caesar seemed to be so important for the film that they even put a box round his name in the closing credits!

The last few minutes just seemed to be a cameo-athon - I think I saw a tennis player too.

I don't know why exactly, but cartoon->live-action conversions like this don't do it for me - they seem to lose something that the books had - maybe that's the Anglo-Saxon in me?!

[Mac]

One has to admit, he has a point. It takes money to make these features and that cash has to be recoup'd. It tweaks me, though, that in order to reach "300 million Europeans" the creators had to resort to Gladiator and Star Wars parodies. The shadow of my country's pop culture is huge and far-reaching, and I'm sure treatise upon treatise could be written up on why that's so. But there ought to be some kind of comparable pan- (or at least pannish?) European vision.

It's not surprising that the movie winds up being slightly bland, though. A broad focus makes for broad humor, which the worst of Hollywood (it's not ALL terrible) has mastered -- the lowest common denominator will reach the widest possible audience internationally (and simple humor is, simply, the easiest to translate and subtitle) even though it's not necessarily reflective even of the variety and complexity of thought and viewpoint in the United States proper, let alone of it's entire international audience.

Eh, I'm rambling and being hyper-theoretical, I guess...

[dot king]

Un plat quelque part + cinoche planned for tomorrow evening, but we shall be going to see "Cortex".
C'est un choix . . .

[Joan Arles]

None of the films are as good as the original Goscinny-Uderzo cartoon books. And they haven't been the same since Goscinny died 30 years ago. They lost their edge with Uderzo, the artist, doing the story line. The satires on nationalities were Goscinny's wit: les Bretons -- the ancient Britons -- and their tea-time and lawns, the Spaniard called soup-a-lonion-y-crouton, and so on.

As people have already noted here, it doesn't make sense to put humans into a comic fantasy. The Superman, Batman, Spiderman films from Hollywood were never up to the original comic strips.

[Daniel Strohl]

Joan,

"And they haven't been the same since Goscinny died 30 years ago".

Yes, I agree. He was an outstanding storyteller, with gentle humour.

[Dominique]

Charles says :

"That version, directed by Alain Chabat, [...] was full of in-jokes and turned the Gauls-versus-Romans theme into a satire of modern France."

That is very true and Chabat did catch the Goscinny spirit. Every one of his albums was a satire of the french society at that time. Asterix in Lutèce complaining about the polluted air, truck drivers yelling at each others, gaulois fighting with each other without remembering why they do, wild gaulois both blaming and admiring the civilized romans, chauvinism versus openess to others, paranoïa, courageous asterix and coward crowd, even the kinky oldtimer Agecanonix married to a young former model pin up (Sarkozix?)etc... it is all in Asterix.

What is left in the movie?

[Mary Chin]

I love the Asterix albums exactly because they skewer French life so well, and Mission: Cleopatre did, too. The loving humor targeted all nationalities without being nasty. If you take that out, Asterix just becomes an inoffensive children's story. I think Chabat was able to update it without losing the charm. And there WAS a Star Wars gag in the Chabat film, but very fleeting and just enough to provoke gales, as well as sight gags to "Jaws" and other well-known films. I didn't feel that it was totally untranslatable to non-French speakers.

[fr dave]

" Sarkozix " .

Hmm. Have to think on that .

" Sarkozix the Gaul " doesn't really work as he seems more like an extra-terrestrial, or expatriated would-be american, or just international bling-set, than a frenchman.

Even those others don't work, as his english is absolutely atrocious, and the real jetset spik english ?

http://www.waynemadsenreport.com/downloads/20070610/download

Sometimes, just listening is best. A complement to Blendi Progri turning the sound down on the TV .

[Mauvezin]

we shall be going to see "Cortex".
C'est un choix . . .
**************
C'est le bon "cchhhhhoix" comme dit VGE ;-)

[john o'doe]

Fr Dave
Thanks for the link. Now I realise that when you see Sarko joking with Bush, Merkel, Brown, Mittal, etc, and they just fall about laughing...it's his accent and not the joke that causes such hilarity.

[Daniel Strohl]

Fr Dave,

It is funny ! But what is also funny is that one of the commentators has himself a funny pronunciation - he speaks as if he had soup in the mouth!
C'est l'arroseur arrosé!

[Robert Marchenoir]

"New Asterix is unfunny and un-French".

Mmmh.

What's implied here is that we French should stay French so as to stay funny.

I'm not really sure this is to be taken as a compliment.

[dot king]

go see "Cortex" instead
it's excellent

[Blendi Progri]

“Sometimes, just listening is best. A complement to Blendi Progri turning the sound down on the TV .”

Posted by: fr dave

Thanx mate, good link by the way, but for the record I turn the Voice On, once in a while ;) LOL
========================.

Havn`t seen the movie, but from the sound of it looks like something outta of a Mel Brooks comedy.

[christopher muir]

The "world movie" fashion might ultimately kill high quality European films. My first depressing encounter with this genre, in the early 90s, was seeing a well shot Hungarian film. Many of the Hungarian actors spoke in a strange sort of English (dubbed in Budapest?) between themselves which made an otherwise interesting central European scenario a farcical experience. Nothing was gained by trying to capture an international audience in this clumsy way. I don't want to see all the arts globalised - I suppose that classical music and painting have been that way for years, but further surrender of any national cinematic ethos to promote banality - purely for box office reasons - is a depressing prospect.

[qwerty]

I wish Alain Chabat and his wonderfully trashy "Burger Quizz" would come back to Canal Plus but apparently he's now too expensive. We really miss his deadpan humour. Has anyone ever seen him imitating his cat?

Asterix without the private jokes, digs at national quirks and cultural references would not be Asterix. It works for people who know intimately about and can recognise and chuckle at the French "travers". Therefore it should not be aimed at foreign audiences.

I imagine the Chabat version was the better one, however I started watching it on TV once and found it lacked rhythm.

Chabat claims also to be influenced by the Saturday Night show, so he has transatlantic cultural models as well, and of course he's Jewish, which makes his humour sharp & derisive with a certain glee for nonsense (or is that English?)

[romain]

I have made the mistake to queue to see it first... Believe me it's one of the worst movie you can see in France this year. At the end I just asked myself how Langmann (the producer) could not be ashamed to release such a crap...