The children who will go to see the new Asterix with their parents will surely love its many punch lines, its scenes of burlesque fights and its references to popular culture. But since children – with a few exceptions – do not read reviews, we cannot ignore here the many failures of the film for adults who would like to be warned before taking their offspring to the cinema.
Despite all the promises represented by the imposing budget of 65 million euros and the five-star cast (Marion Cotillard, Angèle, Orelsan, Bigflo and Oli…) of this new opus of the famous franchise, Asterix and Obelix. The middle Empire disappoints, with a script that falls flat, riddled with orientalist clichés and predictable dramatic springs.
The bar was perhaps too high for Guillaume Canet, who is making his first Asterix who plays the title role. It is also the first live-action film in the series not to be based on a comic book, as well as the first in which Obélix is not played by Gérard Depardieu. It is Gilles Lellouche who takes over the role. Eminently sympathetic, he proves to be up to it. The complicity of the two actors and their characters in the film warms the heart. It is rather in terms of the quest for said characters that things go wrong.
rescue mission
Once again, the Gauls are called in as reinforcements in a foreign country against an invader. In this case, it is a question of saving the Chinese Empire from a coup orchestrated by Prince Deng Tsin Qin (do you get the dubious pun…?), with the support of the Romans of Julius Caesar (Vincent Cassel). At the start of the film, the Empress of China (Linh-Dan Pham) is imprisoned by the prince’s army, and her daughter, Princess Fu Yi (Julie Chen), finds herself in Gaul to convince Asterix and his gang to rescue his people.
Guillaume Canet seems to have wanted to avoid an outcome where the Chinese characters, dependent on their Gallic saviors, would have lost all agency. At the last minute, when all seems lost for Asterix and Obelix against the Roman army, it is the Empress’s army that causes the surprise and achieves the final victory. Remember, moreover, that we can allow ourselves to divulge, here, since the Asterix always end with a happy banquet where the victory of the Gauls is celebrated.
We regret all the same that the filmmaker did not take more advantage of the opportunity to make this first film so far from the real Roman Empire to reinvent this classic structure. Moreover, even if women occupy beautiful roles in the foreground, the representation of many Chinese characters remains too caricatural, even insensitive.
A watered down version
Certain elements from the comics, immutably funny and charming, always manage to have an effect, and save the film from disaster. We laugh a lot, as always, when the irreducible Gauls savagely attack the Romans, or when the bard Assurancetourix (wonderfully embodied by Philippe Katerine) is ostracized by the villagers. The staging does, however, produce a watered-down version of the original comic book universe. We lose the magic and the warmth of the previous film, Asterix and Obelix. For Her majesty (2012).
Far from the slower rhythm ofAsterix and Obelix. Mission Cleopatra (2002), the greatest success of the series, where we still allowed ourselves long scenes of comic dialogues, this last episode takes the frantic pace of an American hyperproduction. He suffers from a manifest need to surprise and stimulate the viewer at all times. Many scenes are also accompanied by American popular music and give the impression of a French cinema that is looking for itself and that tries (too much) to please the greatest number.
By Toutatis, has the sky fallen on the head of French cinema? Not quite, but Guillaume Canet’s film needs its own magic potion and calls for better works to pay homage to the late Goscinny and Uderzo.