I remember the first two movies, while made essentially for kids, they had good enough jokes adults could watch.
This new movie, however, seems to confirm the trend that often times, the third movie of the series ends up being more controversial in the sense that after two good movies(well an acceptable one and a pretty good one), fans are obviously expecting more, but it's precisely at the third time around something happens: the actors seem bored, the acting feels tired and stiff, the plot is nothing special and ultimately, the crowd notices that it is a bad movie. The same happened in Spider Man 3, Asterix follows that trends.
In this particular story, even the title is misleading, a lovesick gaul wants to be engaged to a Greek princess, but her father begs her to marry Cesar's son(OK, first off, major continuity error: in the second movie, Cesar was a somewhat young emperor and had just married Cleopatra, now he appears as old man and already has an adult son). Ultimately, she decides to wed the winner of the upcoming Olympic tournament, so the guy decides to recruit Asterix and Obelix to help him win the Olympics. OK, fair enough.
However, that's where things start crashing down... As the main characters, Asterix and Obelix end up for the most part being side characters to assist the main one and the vast majority of the famous Asterix characters are reduced to background filler, surprisingly the village singer gets about as much screen time as the main heroes, but even Asterix had few lines and does very little then do his whole routine which is beat up romans, though they don't do much of that here nor can they use most of their powers with the potion, since it's the Olympics they get themselves disqualified for using them(through doping tests done by blowing into weird-looking beetles).
So by removing those powers they end up doing very little, other then giving the villains the edge until they turn it around for them. Of course, you would expect Asterix to be filled with funny gags and lots of historical references, but here not only do the jokes feel stale, but most of the times it's a very hit and miss affair...
One obvious example would be the light saber gag, where one of the soldiers plays around with a light saber that just so happens to be in a shelf of an chemical lab and does an Obi wan-style pose. That gag, as well as countless others, seems so forced, predictable and repetitive(like Brutus's useless attempts to do away with his father that just ends up always the same way). The only remotely good jokes are very far and between...
Again, back to the performance of the actors, Asterix is barely there, the actor who plays Brutus becomes tiresome after a while and Gerard Depardieu continues to do his same routine of a huge dummy but there he just doesn't put as much heart in it as he used to, it's safe both of them, including the other main character disappear at the end of the movie. Everybody else doesn't stand out, not even a returning character from the second movie(I had hopes that he would be the saving grace at the end of this picture only to be lost with a host of pointless cameos that just make the ending go longer and longer for no reason).
In the end, this movie might only be acceptable for the most hardcore Asterix fans, but even they could be in for a huge disappointment. Honestly? Wait for the DVD, so you can rent it, because not even special effects save this from being an average at best comedy movie.
This new movie, however, seems to confirm the trend that often times, the third movie of the series ends up being more controversial in the sense that after two good movies(well an acceptable one and a pretty good one), fans are obviously expecting more, but it's precisely at the third time around something happens: the actors seem bored, the acting feels tired and stiff, the plot is nothing special and ultimately, the crowd notices that it is a bad movie. The same happened in Spider Man 3, Asterix follows that trends.
In this particular story, even the title is misleading, a lovesick gaul wants to be engaged to a Greek princess, but her father begs her to marry Cesar's son(OK, first off, major continuity error: in the second movie, Cesar was a somewhat young emperor and had just married Cleopatra, now he appears as old man and already has an adult son). Ultimately, she decides to wed the winner of the upcoming Olympic tournament, so the guy decides to recruit Asterix and Obelix to help him win the Olympics. OK, fair enough.
However, that's where things start crashing down... As the main characters, Asterix and Obelix end up for the most part being side characters to assist the main one and the vast majority of the famous Asterix characters are reduced to background filler, surprisingly the village singer gets about as much screen time as the main heroes, but even Asterix had few lines and does very little then do his whole routine which is beat up romans, though they don't do much of that here nor can they use most of their powers with the potion, since it's the Olympics they get themselves disqualified for using them(through doping tests done by blowing into weird-looking beetles).
So by removing those powers they end up doing very little, other then giving the villains the edge until they turn it around for them. Of course, you would expect Asterix to be filled with funny gags and lots of historical references, but here not only do the jokes feel stale, but most of the times it's a very hit and miss affair...
One obvious example would be the light saber gag, where one of the soldiers plays around with a light saber that just so happens to be in a shelf of an chemical lab and does an Obi wan-style pose. That gag, as well as countless others, seems so forced, predictable and repetitive(like Brutus's useless attempts to do away with his father that just ends up always the same way). The only remotely good jokes are very far and between...
Again, back to the performance of the actors, Asterix is barely there, the actor who plays Brutus becomes tiresome after a while and Gerard Depardieu continues to do his same routine of a huge dummy but there he just doesn't put as much heart in it as he used to, it's safe both of them, including the other main character disappear at the end of the movie. Everybody else doesn't stand out, not even a returning character from the second movie(I had hopes that he would be the saving grace at the end of this picture only to be lost with a host of pointless cameos that just make the ending go longer and longer for no reason).
In the end, this movie might only be acceptable for the most hardcore Asterix fans, but even they could be in for a huge disappointment. Honestly? Wait for the DVD, so you can rent it, because not even special effects save this from being an average at best comedy movie.