Cynical Cinema

When I was a kid, I loved Asterix and Obelix. I would go to the library and borrow every single one of those giant, hardcover, oversized comic books. In fact, most of the reason I still have the ability to speak and understand French today is thanks to Asterix et Obelix, Gaston La Gaffe, Lucky Luke, and a host of other French-language comic books aimed directly at very young children. In 1999, this comic book, beloved in France, was turned into a massive live action movie starring some of the biggest names in French films, including Gerard Depardieu as Obelix. Asterix et Obelix Contre Cesar comes to DVD in North America today, July 1st, from Alliance Films. It has no English subtitles, and no English dubbing, so unless you speak French, steer clear.

For those of you (and I’m sure there are a few) who are unfamiliar with the story of Asterix and Obelix, they are Gauls, who live in a little village in the heart of the Roman Empire. The Romans have managed to conquer the rest of the known world, but for some reason this little village continues to resist their rule. It’s all thanks to the “magic potion” brewed by the village’s resident druid, Panoramix. This potion gives anyone who drinks it superhuman strength, and the village has been using it to fend off the Romans for years. Asterix is the leader of the Gaul warriors, a clever and cunning fellow, and Obelix is his stupid best friend. Obelix, as a child, fell into the magic potion, and became permanently super-strong. He is the only one in the village who does not have to drink the potion to beat up Romans. And the rest of the comic book involves Romans attacking in columns and phalanxes, the Gauls punching them, words like BAFFE pop up, and the Romans land far away with their clothes off. No one ever seems to die, but there is a constant threat of being thrown to the lions. (Or, if they’re in Egypt, the crocodiles.)

Asterix et Obelix Contre Cesar remains true to the comics. Very true. In fact, much too true. Everything from the comic book is thrown in to a giant pot and stirred around with a giant paddle. In fact, they kept certain objects intact from the comic books, like the giant pot and giant paddle they use for the potion. In the film, the Romans want to destroy the one little holdout village that hasn’t succumbed to Roman rule. Also, there is some plot that involves a thief who comes to the Gaul village and steals the gold the Romans have collected in taxes. But the thief goes away quickly, the gold goes away quickly, and nothing really comes of that. Also odd is the sub-plot that involves Laetitia Casta, a French supermodel making her film debut here, as the gorgeous woman who shows up just so Obelix can fall in love with her. She’s no actress, but she sure is hot enough to moon over.

And that’s the biggest problem with this film. Obelix has a crush on the girl, so he moons over her - just like in the comic book. Obelix eats a lot - just like in the comic book. In fact, come to think of it, Obelix (Depardieu) is basically Marmaduke. He’s either eating a lot, or he’s trying to be like people. He keeps trying to drink the magic potion, even though he doesn’t need it - just like in the comic book. The Romans crush Asterix and Obelix with giant rocks, and the rocks just push them down into a hole in the earth. Just like the comic book. The Romans attack in wave after wave, just to be punched out of their clothes. Just like in the comic book.

All of this made for some very entertaining comics, but not so much entertaining film. A lot of the humour here is visual, and the director has done a pretty good job in recreating the exact visual effects from the comics themselves. But that’s the stuff that just doesn’t work after a while. Now, I watched with my two step-kids, and they really liked the visual humour. But they don’t speak much French at all, so they missed the jokes that are actually funny. Asterix et Obelix Contre Cesar contains quite a bit of Monty Python type humour. There are also dozens of references to classic films, most notably Star Wars. Roberto Benigni shows up to do a memorable turn as the villain Detritus, and with his poor French accent, he really stands out. If you understand French.

And that’s the best thing about these movies for our kids. (Another one, Asterix et Obelix: Mission Cleopatre, comes out the same day, July 1st.) Not only is the French very simple, and easy to understand, the films are also so wild and cartoonish that you really don’t need the dialogue to explain everything. The kids enjoyed both, even though their command of the language is suspect at best. The film is not great. It’s only sort-of good. But it’s simple, the kids will like it, it will help them with their French, and Laetitia Casta is hot and there are lots of big jugs. So it’s worth your while in some way.

These Asterix et Obelix movies are impressive films. A massive cast, some of the most well-known actors in the world, and a seemingly limitless budget for what are, in many ways, modest movies. Asterix et Obelix: Mission Cleopatre is no exception. In fact, this movie is the most expensive movie ever made in France. Gerard Depardieu and Christian Clavier return as the titular heroes, and Monica Bellucci shows up as the titular heroine. I think I can safely make this proclamation right now. Never, in the history of children’s movies, has there been a sexier, hotter, more ridiculously smoldering character. France is a little different than North America, you see. In North America, you can show explosions and violence and fighting and killing in kids’ movies, but kissing? That’s kind of a stretch…

In France, however, they make movies like this one. Monica Bellucci, possibly the most magnificent, gorgeous specimen on movie screens the world over, is Cleopatra. She wears different, opulent, clothes in every scene. Sometimes those clothes are see-through. Other times, they manage to reveal everything but nipple. And still other times, there are gratuitous (but welcome) shots of the top of her ass crack. How often do you get to see something so glorious in a kids’ movie? In my memory, never. In fact, not only is Monica Bellucci the hottest women ever to appear in a kids’ movie, she is also the hottest Cleopatra of all time. Elizabeth Taylor was awfully close in 1963, but in 1963 she wasn’t wearing anything like this.

Once again, with this film, there are no English subtitles or English dubbing, which means that unless you speak French there will be a significant language barrier. However, the actions and plot are so cartoonish that you may be able to figure it out anyway. Jamel Debbouze plays Numerobis, an Egyptian architect, who has been commissioned by Cleopatra to build a palace in Egypt for Julius Caesar. This is all the result of some silly bet between Caesar and Cleopatra, which makes virtually no sense at all, but at least it sets up the plot. Numerobis has three months in which to build this gigantic palace, and of course can’t possibly finish it in that time. So he visits Asterix and Obelix in Gaul to persuade them to help him finish on time, with their magical potion. Soon, all the workers in Egypt are sipping the magic potion and gaining superhuman strength, and the palace is going up quickly. (This involves some Monty Python-esque dialogue between the labourers, who explain that they are not slaves, and then go on strike to reduce their days to 18 hours and to get fewer whippings.)

But, of course, there has to be a villain in the movie. In this case, it is the “official” Egyptian architect, Amonbofis, played by Gerard Darmon. We suppose that his main reason for attempting to sabotage the construction of this palace is that his feelings have been hurt, in that he was not the architect chosen to build the place. Other than that, there seems to be no reason for him to be angry. He conspires with Caesar, who wants to destroy the palace that is being built FOR him, so he can win a bet…all of this is tied together with loose connections and plot holes and leaps in logic that are so comic booky in nature that keeping it all straight would require a PhD in idiocy.

And once again, the biggest failing in the film is the adherence to the comic books themselves. The boars they eat are gigantic. They bring Cleopatra a cake that is as big as a person. No one questions these things, because it’s a comic book. But they just don’t work on the big screen. You wonder why, when the fighting between the Gauls and the Roman army is going to be so cartoonish, would they bother amassing such a gigantic number of actors to play soldiers. And then, the whole movie closes with a song by Snoop Dogg. Bizarre. However, at the end, one question was answered for me. I wondered why, in the first movie, Caesar was played by Gottfried John, and in this film he’s played by the director, Alain Chabat. Well, he gets to seriously make out with Monica Bellucci. I think I may have cast myself as Caesar were I the director in this case as well. It turns out that this is the plum role in the film.

Once again, just like Asterix et Obelix Contre Cesar, this is a film that is great for kids in the sense that it will help them with their French and they will want to watch it even though they don’t understand every word. And you will want to watch it for Monica Bellucci. Which makes it very worthwhile, while still being not very good. Asterix et Obelix: Mission Cleopatre comes out along with Asterix et Obelix Contre Cesar today, July 1st, from Alliance Films.

          “Cruising Bar” is a French Canadian movie from 1989 that comes out on DVD tomorrow, June 10th, from Alliance Films.  It’s a film by Robert Menard that stars Michel Cote in four different roles.  All four characters are heading out to the bars in an attempt to pick up women.  One is a self-centred obnoxious yuppie named Charles, one is an annoying stereotypical nerd named George, another is an irritating sleazy married auto-parts dealer named Gerry, and the last is a mulletted junkie loser named Patrick who is broken-hearted over his breakup with his girlfriend.  So…there are the four main characters - Patrick, Gerry, George and Charles.  These are the names that appear on the English subtitles.  However, the names the characters are given on-screen, in French, are Jean-Jacques, Gerard, Patrice and Serge.  Do the subtitle people really think that English audiences can’t understand French names? 

          Apparently, no.  Even the title, “Cruising Bar”, gets a bizarre translation into English on the DVD box - why not call it “Cruising Bar” in English as well?  It’s already an English title.  But it gets “translated” to “Meet Market”.  Which is odd, but not as odd as the subtitles themselves.  Not only are the actual names of the characters changed, so is virtually everything else.  The yuppie snob meets a woman who says quite clearly (in French) that her name is Louise.  It shows up on the screen as “Julie”.  A bartender offers him an O’Keefe.  The screen says Coors Light.  A woman tells him she runs 160 kilometres a day, to see if he’s paying attention.  The screen says 90.  Fifteen years becomes sixteen years.  And the actual French dialogue is quite a bit different than the English subtitles, and if you understand French, you’re way better off switching them off altogether.  It’s like someone created the words on the screen with the sound off.  It’s two different movies. 

          As the movie goes on, we see the yuppie being obnoxiously yuppie, the nerdy guy being irritatingly nerdy, the sleazy married guy being over-the-top in his sleaziness and his married life, and the junkie being an annoyingly desperate loser.  It’s great that Michel Cote can play all four characters so convincingly (it really did take me a long time to realize it was the same actor in all four roles), but they are all so annoying that it grates.  Do they really have to ALL be such obnoxious over-the-top caricatures?  And really, although there are four stories going on at the same time, we really don’t care at all about any of them, because we don’t like any of the characters.  The yuppie goes to a snob bar.  The nerd goes to a punk bar (remember, this movie was made in 1989 - 1989 “punk” was a cartoon in itself).  The sleazy guy hits a sleazy low-rent motel bar, and the junkie with a mullet goes to a regular disco. 

          The only story that’s compelling even a bit is that of the poor, put-upon nerd who just can’t get it right as he moves from the punk bar to a country bar where they won’t let him in.  But even the bars are stereotyped as badly as the characters.  He ends up in a gay bar, and the stereotypes come flying out.  One thing I absolutely hate in movies is the idea that a guy who gets turned down by even the ugliest women in the world, because of his appearance and personality, will be hit on by gay guys.  Like the idea is that gay guys will try to sleep with absolutely anything where women would never go.  Don’t gay guys have standards too?  Not only that, but the most offensive stereotype shows up at the end, when the big, tough, muscled biker gay guy shows up, and chases the nerd around the room, presumably to have sex with him against his will.  And the big “payoff”?  The grand finale, the punch line of the movie?  Gay rape.  Get it?  Hahaha, he isn’t even gay! 

          But the night ends badly for everyone.  Gerard’s wife shows up (in disguise) at the bar he’s cruising, and he unwittingly picks her up and takes her to the room he’s rented for the night.  Again…hahaha.  Only this time the camera doesn’t show us, the viewer, her face ever.  Are we to believe that we, the people watching, would recognize her, while her own husband wouldn’t?  At any rate, there isn’t much to recommend this film.  It’s Canadian, Michel Cote flexes several of his acting muscles, and…there is a guy with a terrific Joe Dirt mullet.  Other than that, I got nothing.