Asterix at the Olympic Games (*½)

Directed by: Frederic Forestier, Thomas Langmann
Starring: Gerard Depardieu, Clovis Cornillac, Benoit Poelvoorde, Alain Deloin, Vanessa Hessler, Stephan Rousseau
Seen: March 29th 2009

*½ Out of ****

To start, I was expecting a European film in both French and Portuguese when walking into the cinema. I did not get that. Instead, it was in English, and the worst kind of English too, dubbed English, which was terrible. I’d much rather read subtitles than experience the serious non-lip-synch on display here. This is not an Asterix film. It is, however, some sort of farce with Asterix’s name in the title and the bulk of the usual Asterix characters in the film (mostly in the background). The story is only loosely based on the classic comic book with the same name, and great liberty has been taken with story elements not present in the original.

The film has a love story as the main plot, between Alafolix (Rousseau, and I heard this name as Lovesix – probably a product of dubbed English) and Princess Irina (the astoundingly beautiful supermodel Vanessa Hessler). This love story was not featured in the original story. The same goes for Brutus (Poelvoorde), who is portrayed as a comical (think the worst kind of slapstick only for kids below age 5) villain, who was not even depicted in the comic.

Alafolix (I’ll from here on in call him Lovesix, since that was the name in the dubbed film I saw) is in love with Princess Irina, and she with him, even though she has only received letters from him via Telegraphix, a post dove. But Irina’s father wants her to marry Brutus, since he is so powerful (he is Caesar’s son). Caesar (Deloin) is here portrayed as a rather uninvolved, but very vain leader, whom Brutus constantly tries to murder, but Caesar, in this film, has even mirror testers – since he trusts no-one. When Brutus and Lovesix confront each other for the first time, Princess Irina solves their immediate problem by accepting Lovesix’s proposal – she will marry the man who wins the Olympic games.

And so the farce starts – the potion issue is dealt with as drug abuse, with drug detecting beatles effectively rendering the Gauls’ solution useless. This is bad news for Lovesix, since he is not so sure about winning the Olympics anymore. Brutus, however, does not care in the least, cheating is what he does, and it goes on in every event.

WARNING The following paragraph contains SPOILERS (trying to explain the stupidity of the film)...

We all know the outcome of the story before it even reaches halfway, but what we don’t expect are all the irrelevant and useless things that happen along the way. When Caesar does not have a taster on hand for one of Brutus’ gifts, he hands it to his pet Cheetah, and the poor animal dies, after its stomach balloons up. And then its spots fall off, I kid you not. There are peace signs thrown around, references to rave music when Brutus tries to charm Irina, Obelix is compared with the Village People, the Mexican Wave is performed at the stadium, one villain’s name is ”Covered-in-poo” (maybe another unfortunate product of dubbing), whenever Brutus walks into Caesar’s throne room he says Hail daddy, dad, or father, together with many more points of utter stupidity.

The worst however, is the fact that, for a few seconds, a lightsaber is wielded by a character. Let me say that again, a lightsaber, as in Star Wars lightsaber. You’re eyes are not mistaking you, you can still read, I promise. My only question is, why? (no reason is given).

WARNING The following paragraph also contains SPOILERS...

Nearing the end of the Olympics, all comes down to the climactic final event, the Chariot races. And here we find yet another strange insert. The German team is represented by none other than Michael Schumacher; playing himself. Even legendary Ferrari pit-boss Jean Todt is here as Schumacher’s pit-boss. The chariot is fire-engine red, made of smoothest carbon fibre, and drawn by black horses – any more Ferrari references needed? No? Too bad, they even have a pit stop to replace the wheels of the chariot. But alas Schumacher can’t win, for what must the hero of our story then do? Schumacher comes third, but in an homage to the great racer, his position ends up as Forever the Best.

So yes, this film is námed Asterix at the Olympic Games, and that is semantically accurate, since he pops up there from time to time, but alas, only the film’s production values (surprisingly good amidst all the awfulness), and Princess Irina (I might be slightly biased here) saved the film for me. It is terrible.