Asterix: The Mansions of the Gods (2015)

While younger Asterix readers generally prefer the episodes involving a travel in some place in the world, the more mature ones prefer the sedentary stories, as they often reflect a relevant (and comical) aspect of French society through its great incarnation: the Gallic village. On that level, "The Mansion of Gods" is one of the best Asterix adventures, which is saying a lot.It all starts with a clever idea from Julius Caesar: if the Gauls don't surrender to the Army because of the magic potion, then he'll make them surrender to progress. He'll build a vast mansion inside the forest, near the village, in order to attract Roman tourists and Romanize the Gauls in the process. The first act of the story consists on the Gauls preventing the Romans from taking the trees, thanks to Getafix' treated acorns, trees grow back faster than they're uprooted by Romans. Finally, the Gauls let the Romans build the mansion because it is the only way to free the slaves. Roman civilians come, their presence affect the Gauls' business habits and lifestyle, and just when the village was about to become a Roman colony, Asterix brings Cacofonix the bard in the mansion. The civilians leave, and their replacement by Roman soldiers seals the mansion's fate.But the story ends on a rather lucid tone. Asterix asks Getafix if they can really stop the progress, like they did, Getafix replies "of course not, but we have time", we get it, the forest is just given a suspended sentence. It is truly one of the best stories because it questions our relationship to our environment and our culture, especially in these days where frontiers have been erased and the world seems caught in such a perpetual evolution it is almost dizzying. There's a part in the film where Vitalstatistix, imitating De Gaulle, says "I understood you". Clearly, this is a line that could apply to Alexandre Astier. Not only he understood Asterix (and you can tell this is the work of a fan), but he rewrote the story in such a way that he clearly understands the world we live in.It goes without saying that neither "Asterix Conquers America", nor "Asterix and the Vikings" were made by people who understood what Asterix was about. One tried too much to imitate Disney while the other thought it could catch the 2000's audience by inserting many anachronistic jokes and adding a useless romantic subplot (the one heart-warming relationship in the film is between Obelix and a little Roman boy, and it works very well). Astier does inject in his film a form of humor that is extremely relevant to 2010's audience, especially the way, he pretends not to take it seriously, but it is a seriously made film, one that respects the spirit of the original albums, one that would have made Goscinny proud, and according to Uderzo, the best adaptation to date. What more endorsement can you need after that? I had a few doubts though, Astier was known for his TV parody of King Arthur's epic parody "Kaamelot" but then the casting list, made me wonder if it wasn't just another star-studded film, where we'd care less for the story than the voices we'd hear. But then again, Alain Chabat's "Mission Cleopatra" was the best adaptation of Asterix (on any format) and the casting was part of the magic potion. But the real ingredient, one that the two films have in common, that extra spice so severely lacking in the other adaptations, is their love for Goscinny's humor, and its compatibility with their own humor, so their instinct pays off, they don't waste the good gags and remove those that won't, necessarily work on a big screen.For instance, one of my favorite lines in the book is when a senator notices Caesar talking of himself at the third person, he says "he's great", "who?" asks Caesar, "well, you", "ow, him", Caesar says. Good for the book, not so in a film. Astier knows it and makes Caesar laugh like a manic villain and the senators wonder whether its devilish or malefic, which is typical Astiers humor deviation from the story and let characters talk for the sake of talking, but when it's such great writing, no one can refuse it, even the character of Duplicatha, the African slaves' leader is given much more magnitude than in the book. And that's all to the credit of Astier who finds new comical elements to add in every scene, and let also give the credit to the director, Louis Clichy, who made his bones in Pixar, and knew how to enrich rather banal scenes with the sort of slapstick humor only CGI can provide efficiently, making Asterix finally compatible with the Third Millennium.Of course, I feel like a blasphemy saying the film improves the book, but you'd be surprised by how incredibly creative the film gets. In fact, the original book only inspires the first act of the film. In the second act, the Gauls start to enjoy the presence of the Romans, and end up living in the Mansion, then we have a splendid montage sequence, with a 80's Italian hit-song, showing the Gauls trying to fit within Roman lifestyle, wearing sandals, eating grapes, taking sauna baths and so forth. The third act is the climactic fight inside the Mansion, and for the first time since "Cleopatra" you really feel you watch something new, where even the process of making the potion is not taken for granted, when the Gaul's strength show its limitations... even the climax of "Twelve Tasks" didn't leave much suspense in the outcome.This is a school-case of adaptation with three separate acts, totally different one another, and each one providing different kind of thrills and excitement, which made me wonder if it's not a sign of fate that there is Astier in Asterix, I guess the Gods of Animation were with him.

it's a truly funny funny film. The spirit is exactly like the books, the humour goes right to the point of them, where we have lots of social reflections (about economy and tourism, or being happy just for having things) while we laugh at them. The animation is pretty good too - i'm not the biggest fan of their faces while drinking the potion, but it's just a small detail.The fact is: the humor that makes these books so good is completely here. They didn't try to over complicate or anything, they finally made a Cesar that is clever and has a refined strategy, they grabbed what it was funny about the people of the village - the fish and metal owners fighting, the old guy screaming, the importance the chief gives to himself...we get to see a few village fights in this! even the gags of the musician were awesome, even thought they were predictable! I don't know, it just worked. I laughed my ass off, and you can watch it with your whole family. A great surprise i had. Go and watch this movie, i'm sure you won't be able to see it without laughing in lots of bits. Really great stuff.

Last live action Asterix (Mission Cleopatre) movie was almost unwatchable. I am a huge Asterix fan since my early years and a I even spent money on tickets for that film The disappointment was great. But, rejoice gauls warriors! Astérix: Le domaine des dieux is here! The 3d animated movie is based in one of the best graphic novels of the title character. The animation is nicely done and has nothing to envy to great American studies. Design of our beloved characters is well ported from 2d to 3d. The story is expanded with turns that enriches the narrative and makes you feel that hour heroes may not win the day against the roman invaders. Fear not the original story is all there just a little tinkered to make it into a full length movie. Everything funny that makes Asteris such a pleasure to read is there!I really really likes this Asterisk and I hope that they keep this direction instead recurring to mediocre live action films.

As a fan of the series i'm happy that they finally made a new animated Asterix movie. The animation was really nice and all the characters looked exactly like in the comics. Also, in the shots that were two-dimensional it really looked amazing and i forgot for a second that this was a 3D animated film. However, during the view i still couldn't stop thinking that i would rather see this movie in classic 2D animation. As i said, the animation is really good and this is only a personal preference.The dialog was, for the most part, well written and made for a lot good jokes that matched the timeless humor of the series very good. Unfortunately, the rest of the jokes were quite dull and by some choices of words you can easily tell in which time period this movie was released. They also tried to use slow-motion in a few scenes but that got boring really fast.I think the biggest issue i have with this film is the family they added to the story. The introduction of them was almost identical to a scene in the original comic with the exception that they added a child which was nothing more than a plot- device and was also just there because the writers probably knew that a lot of people would watch this with their little children and thought that they couldn't relate to a husband and his wife without a child.Aside from that, i still enjoyed this movie and would recommend it to every fan of the Asterix series.