Asterix at the Olympic Games

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rogerio s Aug 24 The movie is really awful. I’m gonna give it one more star just because Schumacher shows up playing Schumacher. See more Filippos S Mar 23 Terrible. After that I understood why not every book or comic should be made into a movie. See more Cris R @Crisrad90 05/27/2023 The movie is absurd and silly with a few decent gags and some not funny ones. I believe the legendary French actors bring it up though they don't have much to work with. See more Alain M 02/11/2023 Not as good as the first one, but still funny and quirky. So if you are a fan of Asterix, this is a must see See more 04/13/2022 The funniest movie in French (with English subtitles)!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! See more 07/09/2020 The most insulting adaptation I've ever watched, thanks to being an Asterix fan. Sure, the people I know hate movies like The Last Airbender and Dragonball Evolution for ruining their childhoods but me? Asterix at the Olympic Games is absolute trash. Where shall we begin? The story. Good God, the story. Keep in mind that Uderzo, may he rest in peace, was a supervisor on this movie after he didn't like the well-received Mission Cleopatra, preferring Take on Caesar. And I know he was something of a bitter old man considering his swan song for Asterix, not counting an updated version of a short Goscinny-written story and a 50th anniversary celebration, before passing the torch was a xenophobic manga rant disguised as an Asterix story with out-of-place sci-fi elements. But what caused you to just let the director and screenwriters make their own fanfiction? Let me explain: The original "Asterix at the Olympic Games" story was a satire on the usage of performance-enhancing drugs in sports with the magic potion being analogous to steroids. The movie decides to tell a completely different story about Asterix & Obelix helping new character Lovesix win the Olympic Games to win the heart of his love interest, who also wasn't in the book. And if they lose to Rome, she'll have to marry a man she does not love. This man is Brutus. To his credit, the actor seems to be genuinely having fun hamming it up like there's no tomorrow. There's just one teeny, tiny problem: he overshadows Asterix and Obelix, big time. And unlike other live-action adaptations, it's much more blatant here. The duo viewers actually want to see are not much more than side characters and even though it's pretty clear Brutus is the villain, so much time is spent with him, he might as well be the actual protagonist seeing how so much of the movie is told from his point of view. To add insult to injury, look at the advertising for this movie. Note that the poster and the trailers don't bother hiding the fact that this is his show. Tell me, if you had never heard of Asterix before in your life and this movie was your first exposure to the character, which one would you think was Asterix? The guy in the center or the blond dude standing next to him? If you wanted to make a story centred around two lovers and a villain whose most heinous crime, aside from the running gag of constantly trying to kill Caesar, is hogging the spotlight from the heroes then make it a stand-alone film. Don't add Asterix in it, you know? It makes the scenes that actually were recreated from the book all the more infuriating for how out-of-place they feel. Especially since I was calling bull on something that happened near the end of the book but did not lend itself well to live-action. The humour? HA! Gone is the wordplay that defines the series' identity and instead we've got stupidly anachronistic moments that pander more to the modern crowd. And unlike Big Fight, this was what the French script was like. Not anything added in a dub in a misguided attempt to appeal to a specific crowd that never paid attention to it. Nope, this is from French people. The production values? Actually, they aren't half-bad. Though it honestly looks much more outdated than the art direction of Take on Caesar which came out 9 years ago. That movie did have a solid mix of realism and comic book-like appearance in its set design. This tries too hard to look like the comics and comes off as comparatively cheap. Ironic considering this is one of the, if not THE, most expensive French films of all time with Take on Caesar actually being made on a smaller budget than this movie. Not to mention one of the most expensive non-English language movies in general with only one movie determined by Wikipedia as being more expensive. The acting? I feel bad for everybody involved because they seemed to be enjoying themselves but it was ruined by the material they had to work with. Maybe it was better that Christian Clavier didn't reprise the role, given that Asterix is barely in this movie. And don't give me that "he was too old" crap because by that logic, they should've replaced Gerard Depardieu as well in the role of Obelix. Oh by the way, half of the "actors" are people with experience in sports, most notably the guy playing Gluteus Maximus...I'm not into sports so why should I be expected to recognise these people? Besides, I doubt sports fans, even in France, will be watching a film adaptation of a comic series revolving around wordplay and slapstick just to see if their favourite athlete/footballer/whatever showed up in this movie. This review has gone on for too long already so let me just say this, Asterix at the Olympic Games is one of the worst live-action film adaptations that I have ever seen and definitely deserves its position as THE worst, least-defended Asterix movie of the bunch. See more Read all reviews

Asterix at the Olympic Games

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