Page Nav

Hide

Gradient Skin

Gradient_Skin

Breaking

latest

FILM REVIEW: Asterix & Obelix: The Middle Kingdom

A dull affair Cast: Guillaume Canet, Gilles Lellouche, Vincent Cassel, Marion Cotillard, Jonathan Cohen and Jason Chicandier Rating: 0.5/5...


A dull affair

Cast: Guillaume Canet, Gilles Lellouche, Vincent Cassel, Marion Cotillard, Jonathan Cohen and Jason Chicandier

Rating: 0.5/5

With a budget of $72.4 million, the locations, the stunts, and the costumes are grand but the writing and direction simply aren’t. The jokes don’t land and the characterisation is next to nil. The film wants us to laugh along with it but instead, we laugh at it. It’s a family entertainer in concept but just trash in reality.

The story is simple enough. Gallic heroes and forever friends Asterix and Obelix journey to China to help Princess Sa See save the Empress and her land from a nefarious prince, but the execution is tedious.

The presence of Vincent Cassel and Marion Cotillard remains a mystery. Both actors have proved time and again how accomplished they are then why have they humiliated themselves by being associated with this film? Was it perhaps an astronomical pay package, we wonder?  Both deliver the worst performances of their careers, but at least make the film watchable for a minute or so.

The English dubbed version of this French film makes it all the more unfunny. The dialogues were so cheesy and the dubbing artists were terrible while delivering even the simplest of dialogues.

The direction, the screenplay, and the performances all are downright bad with the cinematography bland and generic. Only the colour grading is passable.

Asterix and Obelix: The Middle Kingdom will go down in history as one of the few films so badly made that you would want to stop reading the comic it was based on.

 

No comments