Asterix and Cleopatra

My kiddos loved the first Asterix movie, so I quickly picked this up on ebay: one again, a "version remasterisée" on blu ray with excellent quality picture and clear sound, the original English dubbing. Surprisingly, although they are both interested in ancient Egypt, they liked this one less than the first and the third movies. By far their favorite part, and very much in keeping with the series' farcical spirit, is the introduction, in which one of the Egyptian characters (the troubled architect) mimes hieroglyphics as "natural" language (e.g. Sounds of animals and environmental features) rather than human natural language: part of his apology that the dubbing (of Egyptian, apparently, not French!) will be off sequence with the lip movements of the animated characters. How's that for metatheatrics?

Enjoyable cartoon movie with original story based on the hugely successful series of comic books and featured by our immortals heroes . Asterix books are a popular comics with the same title about a village of indomitable Gauls who resist Caesar's invasion thanks to a magic potion that renders them invulnerable supermen . The year is 50 Bc. Gaul is entirely occupied by the Roman.Well,not entirely..One small village of indomitable Gauls still holds out against the invaders.and life is not easy for the Roman legionaries who garrison the fortified camps .In the village are our friends : ¨Asterix¨,the hero of this adventure,he's a shrewd,cunning little warrior,all perilous missions are immediately entrusted to him. ¨Obelix¨ his inseparable friend,he's a Menhir delivery-man by trade and addicted to wild boar,he's always ready to drop everything and go off on a new adventure with Asterix,so long as there's wild boar to eat, and plenty of fighting. ¨Panoramix¨,the venerable village druid, gathers mistletoe and brews magic potions,his speciality is the potion which gives the drinker superhuman strength although also has other recipes up his sleeve.¨Abraracurcix¨,the chief of the tribe,majestic,brave and hot-tempered,the old warrior is respected by his enemies,he has only one fear,he's afraid the sky may fall on his head tomorrow,but as he always says,'Tomorrow never comes'. And of course ¨Cacofonix¨,the Bard,opinion is divided as to his musical gifts,he thinks he's a genius,everyone else thinks he's unspeakable,but so long as he doesn't speak,let alone sing,everybody likes him..... Meanwhile the Egyptian Queen Cleopatra bets against the Roman Emperor, Julius Caesar, that her people are still great, even if the times of the Pharaohs has long passed. She vows to build a fabulous palace for Caesar within a short period of time. Since all her architects are either busy otherwise or too conservative in style, this ambivalent honor falls to a botcher architect. He is to build the palace and be covered in gold or, if not, his fate is to be eaten by crocodiles. Then the Egyptian architect calls upon an old friend to help him out: The magician Druid Panoramix from Gaul, who brews a fantastic potion that gives supernatural strength. In order to help and protect the old Druid, Asterix and Obelix accompany him on his journey to Egypt. En route to Egypt, the ship is met by a gang of pirates , and as always the pirate vessel is sunk .When Julius Caesar gets wind of the project succeeding, he has the building site attacked by his troops in order to win the bet and not lose face. But just like the local pirates, he hasn't counted on Asterix and Obelix .

This is a fine adventure with hilarious moments here and there, and has Asterix and his inseparable friend Obelix traveling to ancient Egypt to help Cleopatra build a fantastic palace and fighting, as always, against the stupid Romans , pirates and an ambitious architect. Although contains a primitive drawing , however being better developed than former entry ¨Asterix the Gaul¨ , both of them produced by Raymond Leblanc. It contains some customs critical about actual way of life and modern anachronisms that's common thing in comic books . The cartoon movie brilliantly captures the outrageous adventures, tongue in cheek, satire, comedy from original story with the same title and drawn by Albert Uderzo and writing credits by Rene Goscinny . This amusing movie is accompanied to lively musical score by Gerard Calvi with a catching leitmotif on the start and the ending. Full of humor , it's a funny entertaining for kids and grown-ups . The picture will appeal to popular animated hero Asterix and his faithful sidekick Obelix fans and comic-books nostalgics. A successful, funny adaptation from a great comic book.

The second of the animated Asterix films and once again based fully on an early comic album of the same name. This time Asterix, Obelix and druid Getafix travel all the way to Egypt to help a friend of Getafix, an architect named Edifis, who has been ordered to built a magnificent palace for Queen Cleopatra. The only problem is that he only has three months to do so and he has absolutely no skills as an architect.

This time Asterix creators Goscinny and Uderzo oversaw the project and it shows. The film has real energy behind it, which has always been a hallmark of the Asterix series. The film is full of good visual humour, clever wordplay and fun characters. The animation quality is also much higher than previously and even the music, arguably the strongest point of the first film, has gotten bit of an upgrade. Plus, the characters are still very, very good, which we of course have the original comics to thank for.

Unfortunately the film suffers from the same problem the first one did. The comic album simply didn't have enough material for a full length feature film and thus they had to pad most of the scenes to obscene amounts. This is especially notable in the scenes with Cleopatra. Had they simply made new scenes and added subplots, it might have been more bearable, but this way it just seems needlessly prolonged.

Still, it is an improvement and a very good film for kids. Adults will probably find themselves slightly bored, but because the film is constantly moving, entertaining and showing you at least something, the children are not likely to notice. I certainly didn't.

This is the second Asterix film and, frankly, it's much better than 'Asterix the Gaul' (the first Asterix movie). Partly, I think this is because it's actually less faithful to the book than the first film. As a result, there are jokes that work far better on the screen than on the page, there are new scenes and there are even some fairly decent musical numbers.

I only have one real complaint about this film, and that is that a lot of the jokes lack subtlety- they are carried on beyond the point at which they remain funny.

That aside, not a bad film. More for the kids than the adults, but fairly entertaining nonetheless.

OK: I'll admit it. I don't remember all of the details of the story any more. But this movie was one of my favourite Asterix movies. It is based on the Asterix comic of the same title (the 2nd or 3rd one in the series, I believe), and it contains the one moment that I, a big Obelix fan, have always been waiting for.... I won't spoil it, but it's been the best bit of the movie for me.

Also, it contains such a remarkable nose...

Funny and enjoyable, one of the better Asterix cartoons and movies.