Gaston Lagaffe

To start with the plus-side:

Fans of the comics will find literally 100s of details of all kind all over the movie, be it the outfits, Gastons questionable recipes, the evolution of his vehicle, his pets, the archaic instrument, the lighthouse (Ph*** batteries anyone?), the sweet relation to Jeanne....

Jeanne is great and many other essential characters are well transferred to the screen and presence.

One can somewhat live with the decision of some e-commerce startup instead of a publishing company, though, some of the originals subtones and interactions with other people in the office do get lost by that.

Also, the choice of the location with a big open spaces makes sense for storytelling (reminding me of the Jerry Lewis classic "The Ladies Man") and filming, compared to narrow rooms and hallways.

The major fail is the choice and depiction of Gaston himself and the shallow story. Of course, there has to be some story to being pushed ahead and the original cartoons don't have one (apart from the Bravo Brothers).

A better script would have boosted the overall impression.

As much as I can love Pef (Pierre-François Martin-Laval), I didn't find the magic of Gaston in this movie. Transforming a comic that works generally with one page gags in a long feature seems an impossible feat (the only examples I can think of French or Belgian comics successfully converted in a movie are full comic books).

To come back to the movie, if the inventiveness of Gaston that perspires in the comic is indeed found in the movie (through Gaston's invention but also through the use of failed manufactured products, Gaston is too much reduced to that aspect and to his sleepiness. I guess to make him the action spring makes difficult to convey the comic Gaston.

This is a fun film and they did a quite decent job where it comes to incorporating the main elements of the comic strip. In essence Gaston is a bone idle idiot (talking about the comic strip here) with the occasional stroke of genius who lives in a world of his own. If they did anything wrong here, it's that they gave the film too much of a plot, made DeMesmaeker evil and tried to give the contracts a reason. Oh, and they could have made Gaston a bit lazier: after all in one of the strips he is awakened at his desk, early in the morning, having slept there all through the night and his enthousiastic reaction is: "Make sure you put it down as overtime".

In Belgium, André Franquin is an icon among cartoon authors, the creator of, inter alia, Spirou et Fantasio (Robbedoes en Kwabbernoot, in the Dutch translated version) and... Gaston Lagaffe (Guust Flater). "Une gaffe", "een flater", is a screw-up, a blunder, a goof (cf. Goofy). The cartoons are old (created in 1957) and they constitute a weekly running gag (of a half or one page) about an office boy. He "works" at the offices of the cartoon journal in which he appears (Spirou), and if he is not sleeping, he spends his time inventing totally useless contraptions. He likes to economise, and he is environment-friendly when no-one ever thought about it. Hence, he drives an ancient Fiat (at least, I believe it is a Fiat) so as not to spend money on a modern car, and he has converted the engine to coal (!) - a World War II necessity when petrol was scarce - so as not to pollute by burning gasoline and to save money. Obviously, the car (when it runs, as it always breaks down) pollutes unbelievably and coal is much more expensive than petrol if used for this purpose. This illustrates perhaps the difficulties a director is up against when he tries to transfer the gags (there is no real story) to the screen. I doubt whether many young viewers know about coal gas, and where would he buy the coal? So, Martin-Laval has tried to modernise the environment and the gags. He has - predictably - succeeded only partially. Nevertheless, the actor who plays Gaston (Théo Fernandez) remarkably resembles the character, with his typical slouch and attitude. Gaston's impossible pets (a cat, OK, but also a grouchy seagull and a goldfish) are (not too good) CGI. Try to imagine keeping a seagull as a permanent pet in an office. This was Monty Python before it was invented. The purists baulk, of course. But if one keeps in mind that this is a children's movie, the makers have not done a bad job. It is good for some laughs, even for adults, if one suspends disbelief. I do not know what the reaction would be of someone who is not familiar with the cartoons, but it may be problematic. I believe this is also the reason for the failure of Tintin as a movie. The connoisseurs hate it and the rest of the audience lacks the full background of the stories.

The score for this movie actually made me write my first review ever in all my years on this site. I only recently discovered that this movie exists by accidentally finding a trailer on YouTube. My reaction was mixed between cringe and excitement, excitement because I adore the work of Franquin and cringe because usually "live action" adaptations are very difficult to pull off.

It is by no means a perfect film, but I think people underestimate how difficult it is to craft an overarching narrative for a movie based on one or half page comic strip gags. It brings with it a lot of difficulties. In a comic strip readers don't wonder why the lazy mail man doesn't get fired because the world is very small. In a movie however you need to construct character motivation. Additionally, I believe the comic was set in around the sixties, so the writers needed to modernize the setting and the characters a bit, and I think they did well.

Sometimes the choices they make are a little bit hamfisted, for example they turned the policeman antagonist into a meter maid, policeman in training, but in the comic this was his primary role, to give Gaston a hard time for parking without paying, so they had to fit it in somehow. Most of the time, however, I think the choices work.

What surprises me is no one seems to notice how much LOVE and respect went into this movie. It doesn't come off as a mindless cash grab at all. The boy who plays Gaston is a perfect choice, he has the posture, the looks and is very very endearing, but also annoying and a bit awful in his own ways. The readers of the comic surely remember that Gaston could sometimes be a bit of a jerk, but overall likeable. And I feel they captured this spirit. Also they did right by the characters, Prunelle does well, as does mademoiselle Jeanne and they definitely nailed the spirit of Lebrac. What gave me so much joy was seeing Jules de chez Smith en face and Bertrand. With those two they took the essence of the characters of Gastons slacker friends and they modernized them in a respectful way. Applause!

The story is all in all quite thin and serves mostly as a vehicle to get a lot of visual gags out there, but I think it works. They pay homage to visuals from the comics from the get go and you'll find a lot of recognizable tidbits all throughout the movie if you know the comics well. I like how they made De Mesmaeker the antagonist and how we learn what the contracts are for. The antics and inventions ramp up in the function of the plot, in my book it works.

I really feel like the people who created this movie really came from a place of respect and love for the comic and they did their utmost best to construct a movie around the world of Gaston. Their efforts are commendable and I strongly lament the negativity of the reception of this movie. What did people expect?? How would they have wanted to see it different? It's never gonna be exactly the same, but I honestly think they stayed as close to the source material as they could or should. This movie gave me a lot of joy and is a great expansion of the Gaston universe.

I really really hope the movie was successful enough, made back a good amount of money and that the people who worked on it and the actors are proud of what they made. Honestly the low score breaks my heart! It's not deserved. Thank you for this very adequate slice of nostalgia! I love it.