July 16, 2011
An entertaining Euro curio, Adèle Blanc-Sec features a sparky heroine, awakened mummies and a pterodactyl swooping over the streets of Paris. Luc Besson’s genre-jumping career (Leon, Fifth Element, Nikita) returns to form, piling several genres into one quirky movie.
Adèle Blanc-Sec, a spunky, no-nonsense novelist has another life as an adventurer. Plunging into the tomb of Rameses II to swipe the body of the pharaoh’s physician, she’s unfazed by double-dealing bad guys. Back in Paris an ancient egg cracks open and a long-dead dinosaur is on the loose. Who is the wizened man who moves objects with his mind? And what has any of this to do with the comatose sister Adele longs to save?
Based on Jacques Tardi’s popular French bande dessines, Blanc-Sec is a tongue-in-cheek fantasy with a very likeable heroine, believably inhabited by actress Louise Bourgoin. Never happier than donning disguises or using a sarcophagus as a life raft, Adele has the heart of Indiana Jones and the spirited independence of Amelie.
Incompetent cops, a love-lorn suitor and a typically French touch of the macabre make this an unlikely crowd-pleaser. But it works thanks to Besson’s high production values – the film looks wonderful – and Besson’s ability to link it all together with a deliciously deadpan loopiness.
Micmacs, Amelie, A Very Long Engagement – Adèle Blanc-Sec stands in the tradition of a notably French sense of humour, playing with heightened realities, juxtaposing the odd and the normal. But unlike Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s movies, Blanc-Sec is lighter in tone, with a sophisticated, polished goofiness. Akin to The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, with its comic-book origin and turn-of-the-century setting, Blanc-Sec is less obviously fantastical but pulls off its special effects with an aplomb that defies the budget.
It also plays to Bourgoin’s strengths. A running gag sees Adele donning multiple disguises to free a Professor from prison, undaunted by each failure. Bourgoin’s favourite disguise – and no doubt ours – is her fat-suited prison cook, slopping gruel around with fearsome gusto.
Besson’s career has always been unpredictable. But on the extraordinary evidence of Adèle Blanc-Sec, we haven’t seen the last of Louise Bourgoin. Or possibly of Adele herself.
Adèle Blanc-Sec, a spunky, no-nonsense novelist has another life as an adventurer. Plunging into the tomb of Rameses II to swipe the body of the pharaoh’s physician, she’s unfazed by double-dealing bad guys. Back in Paris an ancient egg cracks open and a long-dead dinosaur is on the loose. Who is the wizened man who moves objects with his mind? And what has any of this to do with the comatose sister Adele longs to save?
Based on Jacques Tardi’s popular French bande dessines, Blanc-Sec is a tongue-in-cheek fantasy with a very likeable heroine, believably inhabited by actress Louise Bourgoin. Never happier than donning disguises or using a sarcophagus as a life raft, Adele has the heart of Indiana Jones and the spirited independence of Amelie.
Incompetent cops, a love-lorn suitor and a typically French touch of the macabre make this an unlikely crowd-pleaser. But it works thanks to Besson’s high production values – the film looks wonderful – and Besson’s ability to link it all together with a deliciously deadpan loopiness.
Micmacs, Amelie, A Very Long Engagement – Adèle Blanc-Sec stands in the tradition of a notably French sense of humour, playing with heightened realities, juxtaposing the odd and the normal. But unlike Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s movies, Blanc-Sec is lighter in tone, with a sophisticated, polished goofiness. Akin to The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, with its comic-book origin and turn-of-the-century setting, Blanc-Sec is less obviously fantastical but pulls off its special effects with an aplomb that defies the budget.
It also plays to Bourgoin’s strengths. A running gag sees Adele donning multiple disguises to free a Professor from prison, undaunted by each failure. Bourgoin’s favourite disguise – and no doubt ours – is her fat-suited prison cook, slopping gruel around with fearsome gusto.
Besson’s career has always been unpredictable. But on the extraordinary evidence of Adèle Blanc-Sec, we haven’t seen the last of Louise Bourgoin. Or possibly of Adele herself.