OSS 117: Alerte rouge en Afrique noire

Imagine an aging French James Bond in 1981 sent to Africa on a mission and told not to appear either racist or misogynistic. This is the resulting film. Very enjoyable, as long as you understand the underlying humour and political situation - and, of course, performed brilliantly by Oscar-winning Jean Dujardin. The negative reviewers seem to misunderstand the underlying story and the background with which the film-makers have brilliantly dealt. It is not as laugh-a-minute as the original two films, but this is an OSS117 who is several years older and trying to cope with his decline in functions. I actually prefer this film to the original two - it is more developed upon the changing life of the main character - and it is still funny too!

Not so funny than the two previous episodes, this OSS lacks humor (it was more childish, not so provocative as what you would expect from OSS), a better writing (some scenes just sound fake, or repetitive), and more rhythm (a few scenes feel like forever without adding anything to the story). The actors do their best though, Jean Dujardin is excellent as always.

I was expecting more after a lot of advertising on tv, press, online. Not worth the hype.

It's not awful and it can extract 2 or 3 smiles.

But what a difference with the first two installments. The wit is lost. It's often boring and most jokes fall flat.

5 is a generous rating.

As always Hubert is very funny.

However if you except Jean Dujardin all the other characters are grotesque.

For the first time the country and the epoque are not really at the center of the story.

Here you are just following the mains characters in their adventure.

In short I would say it was fun to watch but no more...

Good movie, very well acted. Good James Bond parody. It's a bit crazy but unfortunately not enough crazy. It could have been a perfect comedy but it seems that fear of sounding racist and sexist keeps screenwriters, dialogue writer and filmmaker from really taking over more crazy. And this fear is gone to last for years.