Unfortunately, this should probably have been titled 'Asterix and the Big Flop'. After they began making Asterix movies again in the mid 80's, they produced two very good ones ('Vs Caeser, and 'In Britain') but this 1989 movie is severely dumbed down. An irritating narrator insists on spelling out the plot at times when it should just have been conveyed by the action. That's unforgivable for a start with an Asterix movie. The books weren't dumbed down, so why the hell should the films be? But it might have been partially forgivable if you were left with an oustanding kid's film. You're not. At best it's average. I hope this isn't the way all the films are going to go (there has only been one since this, whch I haven't yet seen, and one currently in production)
Ok, where to start. Well, for a start I have no idea why they even called this movie 'Asterix and the Big Fight'. It's actually based mainly on 'Asterix and the Soothsayer', with some of 'Asterix and the Big Fight' blended into it, but not the 'big fight' part, so that makes no sense at all.
The revolving door English language cast this times sees Bill Oddie from The Goodies take on Asterix, and though he does a fair job, he's not remotely in the same league as whoever voiced the character in 'Asterix in Britain'. Not only does he lose his predecessor's French accent, he seems to have actually put on an American one. None of the Gauls have French accents. In fact at one point Asterix has to explain to Obelix that 'Gaul' means 'French' for pity's sake. Oddly, this time - for the first time - the Romans actually have Italian accents. Well, some of them do. Others have American accents, and the Centurion, though he has have an Italian accent, has a Spanish-themed name, and at one point refers to someone as 'amigo'. Added to this, the Soothsayer becomes a 'fortune teller', the magic potion becomes a 'vitamin potion', the druid becomes a 'wizard', 'Getafix' becomes 'Vitamix', and, inexplicably, Vitalstatistix becomes 'Bombastix' (why? It's less funny, and why shouldn't children be exposed to the phrase 'vitalstatistix'?) Other regular characters are similarly, pointlessly re-named.
The voice work is inferior to the previous two movies, though certainly not outright dreadful - except Getafix, who spends most of the movie cackling annoyingly after being flattened by a menhir.
The film's worst sequence is early on, where the bard Cacofanix (re-named Franksinatrix or something stupid) gets up and does a rock number which includes him playing a Gibson Les Paul guitar for Gods's sake. This was cringe-makingly inane.
Ok. Having trashed it, is there anything redeeming about it? Well, the fusing of the plots of 'The Soothsayer' and 'The Big Fight' is actually managed quite well. You wouldn't know you were watching an amalgam of two different books if you hadn't read them. The plot incidentally, goes more or less like this. Obelix accidentally flattens the Druid with a menhir, causing him to go mental, and making him unable to brew the magic potion. At the same time a charlatan fortune-teller arrives to prey on the credulous villages, and ends up working for the Romans to get them to leave the village. The only hope is that Getafix can remember how to make the potion and the villagers return before the Romans take the place over.
If I was looking at this purely as a kid's film, I might be a little kinder to it, but frankly I don't see why I should. Part of what was so great about the Asterix books was that they were multi-layered, that they included historical references which were educational and made kids curious about such matters. And for the grown-ups, there were characters making puns in Latin, and clever references to modern pop-culture which were subtle enough to blend into the background. Why any of this should be dumbed down, I have no idea. The books sold millions of copies, so obviously children had no trouble dealing with them. I feel bad saying this, but I half wonder whether this one wasn't aimed partly at the American market, and assumed that nobody there over 8 years old watches cartoons (an obviously erroneous assumption, but perhaps in the late 80's, still forgivable). The next film project was 'Asterix Conquers America', so that doesn't seem too far-fetched a hypothesis.
This isn't a terrible film, but adult Asterix fans will be disappointed with it, and so, I think, would the original writer, Goscinny. Forget this one, and pick up 'Asterix in Britain', or failing that, 'Asterix Vs Caeser' or even 'Twelve Tasks'. This is easily the weakest of the 80's Asterix fims, and I rather wish they hadn't made it.
/ 2 reviews)
Reviews for Asterix and the Big Fight
