Astérix et les Vikings

As a great fan of Asterix I was off course very thrilled when I saw that it was decided the adventures of Asterix would once again become animated, because quite frankly I found the movies to be really unimaginative and unwatchable.

The animation itself left me almost speechless. Also for the first time we were able to hear some familiar music in an animated cartoon ("Get Down On It" and "Eye of the Tiger").

The story itself didn't really follow the comic. Only the original idea, that the Vikings wanted to learn fear and thus kidnapped Justforkix who was sent to the Gaul village to become a man, was used. Some of the characters were taken from some other Asterix adventures (seen in the comic books).

The thing that bothered me most was the poor delivery of lines. In the comic the punch lines were much better delivered and the story was simply more amusing. In the movie even those punchlines they used were lost, because the story around them has been changed so much, they were actually just trying to place these punchlines in the new story and failed! Still as this is obviously intended for the youngest of viewers I will say that my nephew enjoyed it greatly, while the rest of us (my father, brother and myself - the four of us went to see it together) were bitterly disappointed and immediately pulled the original comic from our collection.

So to summon it all up, you'll see great animation, hear good music, all in all have a very well made cartoon in front of you - but with a poor storyline.