Author: Vf DVD

Format: NTSC

Release Date: 04-12-2002

Details: Amazon.ca By Toutatis! Magic potion or not, Alain Chabat has created a version that is livelier, zanier, and more energetic than the first Asterix directed by Claude Zidi. After Didier, the former Nul establishes himself as a clever and efficient director. To succeed in his 55-million-euro gamble—the biggest budget in French cinema and the second-highest-grossing French film, with 14.5 million admissions—he returned to the source material of Goscinny and Uderzo's albums, grafting his own offbeat and zany universe onto them. Anachronisms, wordplay, and nods to pop culture abound: from The Matrix to Le Grand Pardon, via Cyrano or Claude François, it's a festival... Ex-hil-a-rating!! Added to this are an avalanche of irresistible gags, spicy dialogue that playfully balances past and present—"Itineris is right: don't let yourself be SFR-ed"—and sumptuous sets and costumes designed by the creator of Ranxerox, Tanino Liberatore. In short, it is a successful graft of Canal-style humor onto traditional French comedy, in a schoolboy spirit that is not unlike that which permeates the hilarious Airplane!. Around Clavier and Depardieu—the only survivors from the first installment—is a Roman legion of actors, each more delightful than the last: Monica Bellucci, Gérard Darmon as a legendary villain, Dieudonné, Claude Rich, Isabelle Nanty, Alain Chabat, Mathieu Kassovitz, and even Pierre Tchernia!! And then, there are the cases of Jamel and Édouard Baer: absolutely unhinged, they dominate the acting with their gift of the gab and stage presence. Worth watching several times, just as one keeps rereading the original comics. --Sylvain Lefort

UPC: 807581501458

EAN: 0807581501458

Languages: French

Binding: DVD

Item Condition: UsedAcceptable