Asterix at the Olympic Games
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 Oh, those Toutatis have ruined the games by themselves!
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Asterix at the Olympic Games (Astérix aux Jeux olympiques) is a 2008 live-action French film co–directed by Frédéric Forestier and Thomas Langmann, and written by Langmann, Alexandre Charlot and Frank Magnier. It is loosely based on René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo's comic book of the same name.
Plot
Astérix and Obélix must win the Olympic Games in order to help their friend Lovesix marry Princess Irina. Brutus uses every trick in the book to have his own team win the game and get rid of his father Julius Caesar in the process.
Why It Sucks
- Asterix and Obelix, the titular characters, does not appear before 15 minutes into the film, which is already a major red flag considering that not only they are the main characters but also, that mean that the first 15 minutes is fillers because it's Lovesix and Princess Irina arguing with each other, if it was only 5 minutes then maybe it would not be that bad but even then, you will know that this movie had a ton of fillers present just to had almost 2 hours of run times.
- The movie is unfaithful to the original source material. In the book, Asterix, Obelix, Getafix and almost all of the male Gauls traveled to Greece to participate in the Olympic Games and win the trophy. While is mostly the same in the film, it made a lot of changes that threw fans off.
- The most infamous example is Lovesix, a character loosely based on Tragicomix and doesn't appear in the book. He is also the protagonist of the film, pushing both Asterix and Obelix as side characters, resulting in them having minimum screentime appearance. By the way, his English name sounds like "love sex", which is inappropriate for children.
- Brutus, the antagonist who appeared in the books, is made as a comedic villain, looking nothing like how he looks and act. Also, he never appeared in the original book. He wants to overthrow his father, Julius Ceasar and marry Princess Irina to take over the Roman Empire when he wins, the plot point that never existed in the book.
- All of the Gauls travel on the boat with Asterix and Obelix in the book, but in the movie, only Cacofonix shows up. Getafix was also meant to be here, but disappeared completely during the half of the film, due to his actor, Jean-Pierre Cassel, passing away in 2007 from cancer.
- In the book, the Romans find out about Getafix's magic potion and use it to win the games, only to backfire, as Getafix added an extra ingredient to make their tongues blue. In the film, Docteurmabus gave the potion to Brutus to make him strong.
- Princess Irina was added in the film as a love interest for Lovesix, as she doesn't exist in the book. Her outfit during the games looks ridiculous.
- The pacing is extremely slow for the entirety of the film, while the previous live action films such as Asterix and Obelix vs. Caesar had it's fair of slow paced moments, at least that film was still fun to watch and had more entairtaining moments, here howewer it had little to no entairtaining moments due to being extremely slow-paced, and you might likely want to stop watching it after a few minutes.
- The jokes themselves fall very flat. It is a major downgrade from the previous live-action film, Asterix & Obelix: Mission Cleopatra. For example, the scene were Julius Caesar complements himself while staring at the camera for (no joke) 2 minutes straight, which not only is unfunny, but also padding as well. There is also a pointless Star Wars reference in the form of a lightsaber found in a chest.
- Pointless cameos from sport stars, such as Jean Todt, Zidane, Tony Parker and Amélie Mauresmo, with Michael Schumacher appearing as Schumix.
- False Advertising: You would think Asterix and Obelix will be the protagonists as seen in the theatrical poster, but nope, its actually Lovesix.
- The English Dub is not that great. It doesn't help that Irina's voice actress sounds wooden at times. No wonder why they are uncredited.
- Too many fillers are present in this film, and are way worse than regular Naruto filler episodes, since not only they were done for having the running time of almost 2 hours but also, they are not even entairtaining, such exemples would include Ceasar compliment himself in the mirror for 2 minutes, the beginning with the 15 minutes where Asterix and Obelix don't appear and that it had Lovesix and Princess Irina arguing for 15 minutes straight, which is just not funny and prove further that they did almost no research on the actual book.
Redeeming Qualities
- The costumes for the main Gauls and Julius Caesar are faithful to the book.
- Some jokes can be funny.
- Is nice to see Numerobis again (with Jamel Debbouze reprising his role), despite being wasted on the bad comedic moments and only appearing at the end.
- It spawned a video game tie-in that is much better than the film itself, as not only does the game is pretty good but also it is much more faithful to the original book, especially that it had the original animation design and the game itself also take the XXL games gameplay.
Reception
The movie was (unsurprisingly) panned by critics and especially fans of the book for its unfaithfulness of the original book, unfunny jokes and the annoying characteristic given to Lovesix. It has an 18% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes with an average rating of 5.2/10 on IMDB. Despite the negative reviews, it grossed $23.4 million in France in its opening weekend and ended at $133 million worldwide.
Video
External Links
Asterix at the Olympic Games at the Internet Movie Database
Asterix at the Olympic Games on Rotten Tomatoes
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