Astérix y la sorpresa del César

Obelix develops a crush on a local girl only to find that she has a boyfriend already. When both the girl and her partner are captured by Romans and taken to the legion outpost, Asterix and Obelix set out to free them no matter what it takes. Their quest takes them into the Roman Army, across deserts, into Gladiator school and up against Julius Caesar himself.

Where most of the Asterix films are iffy, those that stay close to the books can't really go wrong. Most do and are OK but some don't and suffer from it. This is a mix of at least two books – Asterix the Legionnaire and Asterix v;s Caesar and hence it isn't as good as either book as it has some new material. However it's not terrible and much of the wit of the original(s) comes through.

The animation is also better and has depth and shadow in it, although at times the colours leave much to be desired. Even the character voices are better than usual – although Obelix still gets done as a childish buffoon! This is a minor complaint however and the majority of it is good.

Overall, it's not terrible but the mix of stories and the wandering away from source will annoy many fans. Oh and it opens and closes with the cheesyiest Euro-pop ever….nasty!

Spanning a glorious decade from 1967 to 1976, the first 'Asterix movies' period made all the fans worry about the little Gaul's ability to survive the untimely death of his creator René Goscinny, and that went for the books, too. The first solo albums written and drawn by Albert Uderzo almost proved them wrong but the recent Asterix Adventures were dreadful, overly sentimental, disasters.

Now, to have a look back on the movies: except for "Asterix the Gaul" which was more of a warm-up for the animators, both "Cleopatra" and "The Twelve Tasks" were pretty successful thanks to the careful supervision of both Uderzo and Goscinny. Their hard work reached a peak of excellence with the "Twelve Tasks", an original creation that transcended the slapstick and satire so typical of the albums to the more ambitious requirements of big-screen entertainment.

Sadly, Goscinny died, one year after the film's release, and couldn't even live to see the release of Lucky Luke's animated-feature "The Ballad of the Daltons". Asterix then remained absent from theaters for a whole long decade, until 1985, when both Pierre Tchernia and Albert Uderoz probably felt mourning time was over and the greatest tribute to their late beloved friend was to keep on making Asterix films. It was "Asterix vs. Caesar" (in French "and Caesar's Surprise'), and this is how the 'Gaumont' period started.

If "Asterix vs Caesar" isn't necessarily my favorite, I know it from early enough to be able to recite it line by line. Yet I still have a slight preference for "Cleopatra", "The Twelve Tasks" and the 1986' "Asterix in Britain", so my guess is that "Caesar" takes a honorable fourth spot. The film is enjoyable, entertaining, with a fair mixture of action, escapism and humor, but I'm afraid it might disappoint a younger audience because of some overuse of adult themes, foreshadowing what would become Uderzo's infamous storytelling style.

But there's one thing I've got to hand to the movie, it has one hell of a catchy theme song, far from the previous and more kids-appealing ones. The song "Asterix est là" ("Asterix is Here") is sung by the Belgian Plastic Bertrand, famous in the francophone world for his delirious hit-song "ça plane pour moi", and celebrates Asterix' come-back with lyrics full of Anglicism and adult puns I didn't get until my teenage days, but now, I realize how they firmly established Asterix' entrance in the 80's. Maybe it was a time for a more mature material, to please the kids who enjoyed the first films and became adults or teenagers.

And it's not surprising that the story they chose to focus on was "Asterix the Legionary", where Obelix (voiced for the first time by Pierre Tornade) falls in love with a local villager named Falbala. Oddly enough, as a kid, I was so thrilled by Asterix and Obelix's complicity that I was afraid it would be ruined by a romance; I probably had the same defensive reaction than Dogmatix. But the romance is only the starter and the story quickly mixes up with the plot from "Asterix Gladiator" where Caius Obtus, Cesar's most valuable promoter, is organizing Caesar's triumph in Coliseum Circus.

To make the events even bigger, slaves from all the conquered provinces must bow down to Cesar and naturally, there's a glaring omission, one forgotten province that still resists the invader. Back in Gaul, Falbala's fiancé comes back and breaks Obélix' infatuated heart, but the blonde-haired couple's reunion is short-lived by their sudden capture. An upstart legionary takes them to the Camp's centurion, (a shorter version of Pierre Tchernia, voiced by the same man) but fearing the Gaul's vengeance, the Centurion immediately sent them to the Roman Legion. Not that it will avoid him the Gauls' reaction anyway.

The mission is set, and to be able to rescue their friends, Asterix and Obelix follow their track, enlist in the Roman legion, and their journey send them from Condatum to Rome, passing by Africa. Meanwhile, a chain of events bring Falbala and Tragicomix on a silver plate to Caius Obtus, who got the Gauls to achieve his goals. Casar meet the couple and Tragicomix' defiance sentences him (with Falbala) to lions' penalty. Cesar is far crueler and villainous in this film, so far from his debonair attitude in "Cleopatra", still, as the host of the show will specify: the emperor magnanimously authorize the two Gauls to fight the lions bare-handed.

The film gets indeed pretty dark, and some parts, like Falbala singing in jail upset me a little. Jokes aren't rare though, and we're never as glad as when Asterix and Obelix are on- screen. On that level, the film contains many hilarious one-liners that compensate the overall seriousness of the story. To give a few examples, Asterix asks for the information office, to which he's advised to ask the information office. Another running-gag shows him teaching Obelix the merits of politeness except that he inevitably ends up using Obelix' punchier methods to get what he wants.

The legion part feature many great gags, they hate the food made of butter, lard and cheese cooked together, Obelix asks if the same every day, the cook reassures them: "No, Sunday, there's double ration". The film is so full of adult humor I only regret it being too dramatic, even melodramatic, I'm thinking right now as the climactic sequence where Dogmatix tries to get the magic potion's flask in Rome's sewerage while Obelix searches Asterix at the edge of drowning in his own cell. That part, mixed with Vladmir Cosma's heart-pounding score is so unlike Asterix' usual mood, but it works on a dramatic level.

The film has a great conclusion in the Coliseum, with probably the greatest best chariots race after "Ben-Hur" and overall, an emotionally satisfying ending. It's not the best Asterix film but a promising opener for the new Gaumont period, followed by the much funnier and entertaining "Asterix in Britain".

Astérix et la surprise de César(Asterix and Cesar`s surprise) is definitely the best Asterix cartoon. It captures the atmosphere and style of the classic comics extremely well and this is a must see if you liked the comics. Those who have read the comics will soon see that some of the plot-details have been changed, but it doesn`t matter since the end-result is very good. 9/10

Watched the Danish dub

Some movies should stay in your nostalgic mind as it always was. A fun classic that you could put on every day of the week, but this one, even this one was one of my least favourite VHS´s to put on for some reason. When something is even uninteresting to you as a kid, you know it's not the best. I must say this is not at all the worst movie I have watched from my childhood, but it´s just not the most interesting thing either.

Obelix falls in love with a young gall girl who sadly is already in love with a young gall. They are kidnapped by the Romans and Asterix and Obelix most set out to rescue them, always being one step behind.

The animation is absolutely stunning! So many wonderful hand drawn backgrounds and great character designs, if not a little bit of their time and comics. There are so many stunning images here like the two young galls in the dessert and every architectural background in Rome looking like a blueprint with a lot of details to them. This is a feast for the eyes and the character animations and designs are all great and has so much character.

It´s fun how a childhood sadness still upsets you till this day. The drowning and dog in sewer scenes still upset me to this day like they did when I was a kid. It is ingrained in my body somehow and I don´t like Asterix and Obelix not being friends! They can be upset and bigger but never be not friends.

That is also a huge complaint I have about this movie. Obelix doesn't really seem like himself. He is dumbed down significantly for my liking ,being a huge dumb child. Asterix is as he should be, clever but also cunning. The village wizard is also not quite right. There are a bit too many character deviances for my liking making some very recognizable characters to me seem nearly unrecognizable.

The other big complaint to me is the overall pacing and plot here. The movie seem so slow and boring and that's a bad thing for a kids movie. The overall plot seems senseless and just events happening without much impact. The ideas are good. Asterix and Obelix enlisting in the Roman army, that's fun! Them fighting in Coliseum, great, a love story, yup, but having them all half-done is just not that fun to watch. It wants to do too many things here in one movie and they don´t have that much of an impact sadly. The love story is barely a thing, the enlisting doesn't really affect anything and that is the word of the day, unimpactful. There are too many plot elements that are just things happening for having something to look at, they barely synch up with the overall mission and the stakes are never really felt here. The urgency should be higher so we the audience care more. Even the coliseum fight seems boring and doesn't have enough screentime. Focusing on maybe 1 or 2 of these aspect might have made the movie more fun and interesting as we then could fully utilize the idea and gimmick used here.

The humour is a bit hit or miss but overall pretty fun. The movie have to really get going though. I would say the movie really first pick up at the enlisting, 20 minutes into the movie, that is a lot of the runtime that just feels a bit boring.

I liked this movie a little less this time around that I remembered but is it bad? No but just rather boring and just not living up to the hights I know this series can be. It is also still a fun nostalgic look no matter what but man this movie just needed a bit more of a second draft and maybe even being 2 entirely different movies, utilizing all the ideas to their full potentials instead of being just a lot of ideas thrown at the wall.

I don't understand the <7× rating, this is my absolute favourite Asterix film. The plot device to visit Rome is flawless, the drawn characters feel more real than life action, and all slapstick (!) lands! If anyone asked me what an "Asterix" is, I would show them this exact movie. Perfection. Going forward, I would want Asterix and Obelix to visit space. Let's fast forward, it's no more 50BC but AD50 and the two mount a spaceship. After all, an alien did visit them in one of the most recent comic books. The Asterix spirit won't disapappear: The original Star Trek show and the show Stargate, both, have plenty of references to ancient Greek gods. Let Asterix find a few tribes that left earth long ago.