Audacious young Gaul Alafolix falls head over heels in love with Greek princess Irina. With the help of Asterix, Obelix and the druid Panoramix, he travels to Greece to win the Olympic Games and the princess' heart. There he finds himself in competition with Cesar's treacherous son Brutas, who is feverishly plotting his father's downfall. Asterix and Obelix end up competing, without their magic potion, in the Olympics against some very big, very strong and very competitive Romans. Luckily Asterix has a plan...

Asterix at the Olympic Games won the Gérard du cinéma award for the 'Worst French film made in 2007' and it's not hard to see why.

What is it with Asterix movies? René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo's most famous creations are incredibly funny in their original comic book form, but almost every movie based on them has been almost unwatchable. Time after time they take Goscinny and Uderzo's titles and characters, and then produce something that is only loosely based on the original.

Asterix at the Olympic Games is no exception; it opens with a huge chuck of new material. The comic book starts with Asterix and Obelix out hunting. Here they stumble across Gluteus Maximus, one of the local Roman garrisons, who is training so that he can take part in the Olympic Games. The movie, while still including this scene, opens with a pointless love interest story and a Cesar / Brutas storyline that sees the father / son relationship strained to breaking point.

I really don't understand why the movie didn't just stay faithful to the original comic book. It's not as though there's not enough material to make a full-length film out of it - in fact this film outstays it's welcome. Over 20 minutes could easily have been shaved off the running time, as it is the movie just seems to go on and on with loads of pointless filler scenes; the biggest culprit being the inclusion of sporting stars at the end of the film - that scene just never ends.

There are a few moments where the genius of the source material shines through, including Asterix and Obelix's first encounter with Gluteus Maximus. However these scenes are few and far between.

There are also a few little gags slipped in for the adults (a lightsabre scene; how Venus de Milo lost her arms; a homage to Depardieu's Cyrano De Bergerac (1990); and several famous faces from the world of sport) but to be honest there's not enough here to appeal to anyone over the age of eight and even then it's doubtful they'll sit through it.

Also the film, understandably as it's a children's movie, is dubbed from the original French into English - I assume that the producers think that children won't sit and read subtitles. While some effort has been made to make the new dub fit with the the lip-sync of the original the result is not overly impressive for the most part.

Extras on the disc... no idea as there were none on the half-finished disc we received and the press release simply states that they are TBC.

Oh, and some final thoughts... DVD producers, if you don't want reviewers to switch off five minutes into a film then try and send out review DVDs that don't have "Property of Pathe" taking up a large chunk of the screen. You could also send out discs that are the correct aspect ration and where the picture and sound don't very noticeably stutter almost every 30 seconds. I hope to God that last problems is sorted before this DVD is released to an unsuspecting public.

No doubt very small children will find something to like about this movie, however, there's very little here for adults to enjoy.

2

Darren Rea