Asterix Conquers America

Asterix and Obelix are once more called upon to lay waste the Roman Legionnaires lifted from the wonderful drawings and sympathetic text by Rene Goscinny and Albert Uderzo's comic books . It is 50 bc and the Roman have just invaded Gaul and Julius Caesar has beset the region . But one little village of plucky Gauls faces off the invaders by whatever means , and especially with aid of a replete magic cauldron brewed by the powerful druid, and giving an extreme strenght . Again our friends in action , from the Gaul wars the French Village of Asterix and Obelix is still holding out supplier Getafix's recipe for their magic potion , when he is kidnapped , catapult them over the edge of the flat Earth , straight into the pipe-smoking clutches of Native Americans.

The ordinary fórmula for this seventh installment is still basically the same : the usual battles between The Gaul people and Roman military , along with a good-natured punch-up ,heavy rescue-adventure with Roman puns for adults . Of course , there appears the unfortunate pirates in distress , as always .The animation and drawings are pretty nice and while it is low on the musical count it all rushes by too fast to notice . There is also some marvelous scenes when Asterix , Obelix singing and dancing along with the Indian tribe . Apart from some questionable editing and the use of slightly watered-down colors the movie stays true to original characters . Youngsters no doubt enjoy it , but true buffs may prefer to stick with the pun-ridden books

This aceptable outing was preceded by several cartoon movies , such as : ¨Asterix the Gaul¨ (1967) , ¨The Twelve Tasks of Asterix¨ (1976) , ¨Asterix in Britain¨ (1986) , ¨Asterix and the big fight¨(1989) ,¨Asterix in America¨(1998) , ¨Asterix and the Vikings¨(2006) . And various live-action movies as : ¨Asterix vs. Caesar¨ directed by Claude Zidi with Christian Clavier , Gerard Depardieu , Robert Benigni , Laetitia Casta , Arielle Dombasle . ¨Asterix and Cleopatra¨ by Alain Chabat with Monica Belucci , Jamel Debbouze , Claude Rich , Marina Fois , Gérard Darmon . ¨Asterix and the Olympic Games¨ by Frederic Forrestier with Clovis Cornillac , Santiago Segura, Monica Cruz , Jean Pierre Castaldi and Janel Debouzze . ¨Astérix and Obélix : On Her Majesty's Secret Service¨ (2012) by Laurent Tirard with Gérard Depardieu , Edouard Baer, Guillaume Gallienne , Vincent Lacoste , Catherine Deneuve , Charlotte Le Bonn. And subsequently two 3D entries : ¨The Mansions of the Gods¨ (2014) in computer generator that dealt with a Caesar's plan to absorb the villagers into Roman culture by having an estate built next to the village to start a new Roman colony and ¨Asterix and the secret of the magic potion¨(2018) by Alexandre Astier and Louis Clichy . The film will appeal to Asterix and Obelix fans , it's a funny entertaining for kids , grown-ups and nostalgics .

I remember watching this flick as a kid, so last night I took a trip down memory lane by watching it on Youtube.

The first two acts were great, but the third one sucks. The finale was rushed. Normally the climax of a film is meant to action packed and entertaining. Here, it just flies by and you don't care.

I didn't buy the relationship between Obelix and the Indian girl. The scene where they say goodbye is meant to be sad, but we feel nothing because we only had one scene of them together. Maybe if they had more scenes, that goodbye scene would work properly.

Craig Charles is miscast as Asterix. When you see Asterix, do you think to yourself "Dave Lister should play him"?

The guy playing Obelix works though. But the star of the movie is Christopher Biggins' villain. He's such a kiss ass, yet his plan works. And Chris had fun camping it up.

I liked the Oxford/Camberidge joke and the Romans forming into a pie and slicing a piece. That joke was well done.

The CGI sucks and it's not a film that'll grab you. It doesn't leave you with the urge to watch it again.

Worth watching if you like Asterix, but its not as good as The Twelve Tasks Of Asterix which is my fave Asterix movie.

Somehow it just has never quiet worked out to translate the "Asterix"-comics to the big screen. For one, the graphic novels always had an appeal for both young and old. More than being your average, "funny comic-book adventures", "Asterix" contained insight and informative, valuable facts on cultural references, language and history. Not all of those would reveal themselves to the adolescent reader, but appealed to the older crowd (generally the parents). Indeed, I dare say that the Latin which most of kids from my times learned came straight out of "Asterix".

The cartoons on the other hand, perhaps with exception of the first two films, "Asterix the Gaul" and "Asterix and Cleopatra" (that caught the essence of the first album) and the psychedelic "Twelve Tasks of Asterix", clearly catered to an adolescent audience. Combining various story lines from the comics, the wit and cultural and political references were mostly been replaced with juvenile jokes and slapstick.

Generally most of the Asterix-films are an amalgamation of various comics. In the case of "Asterix conquers America" the story sticks pretty close to "Asterix and the Big Crossing" (but excluding the meetings between the two Gauls with the "actual" discoverers of America, namely a bunch of Danish Vikings). The visuals are okay if you prefer computer-animations over hand-drawings (which I don't), but lack the richness in details that was typical in the graphic novels. However, the gags and jokes are so infantile and predicable, that I doubt it will raise many laughs even during a screening of some children's channel. If you never liked the cartoons, give it a miss and stick to the comics. If you enjoyed the early cartoons, it still is one of the weakest of the whole series.

To those who criticize that there are some genitalia visible in the film, I'll let you in on a secret: We all have them, we've all seen them and very little ill has come from this fact. Only dirty minds think dirty things.

3 from 10 points

Well that's a film for kids, that is clear! However, that not means that Asterix in America is boring. The story is simple, but results convincing and entertains, which is its intention. The quality of the draws is not very good (I didn't expect them to be good, either) but the film doesn't try to result impressive. The only intention of the film is to make some laughs and to pass a good time, and, if you are not very exigent and you try to relax and smile, it is very possible that you enjoy this film. Of course it is not a masterpiece, but it has any intention of being it! Just relax and try not to be very critic, nothing more...

Asterix (Craig Charles of Red Dwarf Fame) and Obelix are on a Journey to America to save their beloved druid Getafix.

Along the way he encounters all kinds of trouble from Indians to Animals. Some other great visuals, accompanied by a Great Soundtrack this is a Fun Film. Great Stuff.