Supercondriaco - Ridere fa bene alla salute

For someone who likes french humor and who tries to stay in touch with the french culture it will be a good laugh. Dany Boon is as usual excellent and hilarious. Do not get fooled by relatively low rating of the movie. I can only assume subtitling could be mediocre which is often an issue in the versions for foreign audiences, especially when it comes to translating humor. If you know or learn French, even better for you. The movie manages to play with the language in a matter you won't be able to not burst laughing. While it isn't a masterpiece and sure is a light, not specially ambitious movie; it delivers exactly what from a comedy is expected. Lots of laugh, silliness and relaxation. For those who didn't get enough I recommend " Nothing to declare"

It may seem to be a rather ordinary work from a nation that did quite well in production of excellent comedies. It helped to renew my blurred memories of my French vocabulary though. And I had some good laughs with my friends while watching it. I would say it is a film worth watching, especially when you are seeking to relax your tense nerves and do not care to follow a complicated plot.

First things first : this is not the movie that will save 21st Century French comedies. It's pretty bad.

The plot makes no sense whatsoever: you would believe there are ghosts in the subways of Paris or an alien invasion in London before believing anyone would be dumb enough to confuse our super french weak main character with an east European revolutionary leader fighter type.

Dany Boon also just overplays it. In this movie he embraces being a new Louis de Funes... but does it quite pull it off. Even if he did, don't do this kind of stuff in 2014 no?

What does work sometimes is the premise of the main character : this germ and virus phobia did get a few chuckles here and there throughout the movie. Enough and often enough for me to plow through the whole thing.

Voila, you can probably pass though.

There is a special introduction for the German audience on the DVD/Blu-Ray, not sure if they have done that for other countries too. But it sets the tone even before you watch the movie. It's hard not to like Danny Boon or any other actor/character in this movie, which really elevates the movie itself.

Obviously if you don't feel the way and if you are not able to laugh at silly things (like his character trying to avoid contact in a moving public transport), you will not be able to have much fun either. But hopefully you do and you will overcome some story hoops and bumps this has to "offer". It's all good fun (even after the doctor comes in this case). Silly and a bit unpredictable (takes you places you might not have expected, but making perfectly "sense" ... for the story and the characters).

Supercondriaque is, somehow, two movies thrown together - the titular hypochondriac comedy, and a mix-up immigration comedy - each of them might work perfectly on its own but the mix has a somewhat hollow taste, it's switching from silly comedy to social commentary to action to intelligent comedy to slapstick and back. None of the characters gets any depth since everyone of them has to act completely silly (= so silly it would feel displaced even in "Hangover") every few scenes to keep the convoluted comedy going, and as a result nothing and no-one gets taken seriously.

There are some really funny scenes in there and one or two good running gags, and there would even be something like a message if we cared about the characters, but as a whole this movie is like some soufflé without salt ... quickly forgotten, nothing of consequence.