The Domain of the Gods is the best adaptation of Asterix to the cinema (review)
The animated film event by Alexandre Astier and Louis Clichy returns at 9:05 p.m. on W9.
Channel 9 will rebroadcast tonight Asterix – The Domain of the Gods. An animated feature film First loved it when it came out at the end of 2014.
Asterix – the secret of the magic potion: It’s cartoony! (Critical)
Despite the delirious budgets, the all-star castings and, sometimes, the desire to do well, we never believed for a second in their Gallic village in pasteboard, their wild boars in approximate computer graphics and their fight under potion way Bud Spencer And Terence Hill. Obsessed with the idea of doing justice to the verve of Goscinny, each Asterix ended up leaving the pop and speedy imagery imagined by Uderzo completely by the wayside. Having opted for a dynamic and sparkling 3D CGI animation, Alexandre Astier And Louis Clichy (ex-animator at Pixar) have all of a sudden circumvented the major problem of adaptations of comic strips for the cinema by giving us the impression that we are watching an adaptation of Asterix and not, at random, an episode of “Greatest Cabaret in the World”.
Alexandre Astier: “The soul of Asterix is something fragile”
Here, in one scene, which comes just after the credits, everything is on point: the round design of the characters, the peplum vignettes, the paradisiacal rendering of the Armorican forest, the impression of supersonic speed as soon as we take off a shot of potion… In short, the two Gallic superstars are finally moving before our eyes. And it will therefore have been necessary to wait until 2014 to realize this little fantasy of cinema.
The other good news is that Astier went to great lengths for the script, pledging allegiance to the effectiveness of the original story, to the expected running gags (“Who’s fat?”) and the valves of Goscinny, while splitting a particularly well-felt vision of the character of Obélix. Constantly observed through the eyes of a kid who is both frightened and fascinated, the pot-bellied Gaul takes on a mythological dimension, suddenly becoming a real cinema issue (somewhere between Hercules, Superman and Winnie the Pooh), barely sketched in the original work. It is in this fascinating rereading of a hero known to all that Astier’s work finds its legitimacy and that the commission (because it is one) takes a highly personal turn.
From the author of Kaamelott, we had until then retained his ease for the verb that slams and the oral joust that hits the mark – which we find here with pleasure – but above all this ability to take off the comic pastille towards unexpected territories , both sensitive and epic. Her Domain of the Gods is made of this wood, zigzagging between hectic cartoons, sitcoms in braies, melodrama and pure moments of heroism that glue us to our armchair (this climax, damn it!). It’s both a real auteur film and a good piece of popular cinema, and above all it gives the impression that Astier and Clichy have found the recipe for the magic potion. All you had to do was ask Obelix.
Making-of of Asterix The Domain of the Gods
Francois Grelet
Trailer :
