The Twelve Tasks of Asterix

The best Asterix film at the time of its release and certainly one of the best overall. "Twelve Tasks" was always a favorite of mine and watching it now, close to 20 years later, it's still as funny and imaginative as it ever was.

As an Asterix movie it's a bit of an anomaly. It isn't based on any of the comic-books (are they graphic novels?) and doesn't follow any of the continuity or logic of any of the other stories. But since it's by René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo themselves you could hardly call it unofficial.

Julius Caesar calls a truce with the village and says that Gaul can rule Rome if they can win Twelve impossible tasks in the vein of Hercules a few thousand years ago. If they fail, they must surrender to Caesar. But with Asterix and Obelix as their chosen champions do you really think they will fail? The plot lends itself to lots of visual humor and irreverent satire. How can a kid's animated movie have this much depth and wit and still be relatively unknown in the wider world of Toy Stories and Ups? It's insane.

Definitely a great treat for Asterix fans and the perfect way to introduce new people to the franchise.

The year is 50 B.C. , Gaul is entirely occupied by the Roman. Well , not entirely..One small village of indomitable Gauls still holds out against the invaders . And life is not easy for the Roman legionaries who garrison the fortified camps . In the village are our friends : ¨Asterix¨, the hero of this adventure , he's a shrewd , cunning little warrior , all perilous missions are immediately entrusted to him .¨Obelix¨ his inseparable friend , he's a menhir delivery-man by trading and addicted to wild boar , he's always ready to drop everything and go off on a new adventure with Asterix , so long as there's wild boar to eat , and plenty of fighting .¨Panoramix¨, the venerable village druid , gathers mistletoe and brews magic potions , his speciality is the potion which gives the drinker superhuman strength although also has other recipes up his sleeve . ¨Abraracurcix¨, the chief of the tribe , majestic , brave and hot-tempered , the old warrior is respected by his enemies , he has only one fear , he's afraid the sky may fall on his head tomorrow , but as he always says , 'Tomorrow never comes'. And of course ¨Cacofonix¨ , the Bard , opinion is divided as to his musical gifts , he thinks he's a genius , everyone else thinks he's unspeakable , but so long as he doesn't speak , let alone sing , everybody likes him.....

The film concerns Julius Caesar who offers the Gauls a covenant , they must prove if they're Gods by making twelve extremely hard works , similar to 12 works of Hercules , which are the following ones : Hercules vanquished the Amazons warriors , captured a wild boar and a bull of island of Crete , killed the Hydra , swept the stable of Ujias , murdered Gerion and Diomedes , he had apples of garden of Hesperides, he won a race against the clock to a deer , strangled Lion of Nemea , he shot arrows to birds at the lake Stinfano , he took Teseo from the inferno . Asterix and Obelix will be able to resolve twelve similar tasks that Caesar chose and if they fail they would turn slaves and the Gaul village would hand over the Roman empire . Among the dangerous missions our friends have to suffer are the following ones : the fighting a winner javelin thrower and against a judo-man , the lures of mermaids , taking on a celestial challenge with a God, combating a ghost army , the crossing an invisible bridge and confronting public officials , adding an extreme critique to the state bureaucracy , among others , and along the way including a lot of anachronisms , entertainment and fun . The picture will appeal to Asterix and Obelix comic-books fans.

Most of the by now many Astérix adaptions are based on the comic albums, this film has its own script - maybe that's why it works better than the other ones. The story is much more fantastic and postmodern than usual and most of the gags center more on sight than on wordplay - which is a good thing for a movie. The comics are full of clever wit but that's hard to translate on screen. There's also much satire here; I especially liked the bureaucratic hellhouse. Some of the 12 labours are obviously better than others but that's OK too, the story is episodic enough anyway. The animation is just OK, a far cry from Disney or Miyazaki standards, but basically it does its job.

I'm mostly a rather introvert person. When a comedy makes me smile it has succeeded, when it makes me chuckle it is a rousing success. The climax of this film made me fall from my cinema seat laughing.

This film is not based on any of the Asterix comic books as most of the Asterix films. Asterix faces 12 tasks, one more daunting than the other (I can't remember why, it was over 20 years ago), building up to the last one, the most difficult of the lot. Do not, under any circumstances, including hurricanes and invading Mongolic hordes, leave the cinema before that scene!

This is the year 50 before JC. All the Gaul is occupied by the Romans. All the Gaul? No! A little village populated by some irreducibles Gallics resists again and always to the invader. This situation gets on Jules César's nerves who's starting to compare these Gallics as gods. To have proof of this, he sets them 12 works. Astérix and Obélix are chosen to take up the challenge... This animation film isn't an adaptation from one of Astérix' albums, it's an original screenplay that inspired from the Greek mythology with Hercule's works. The movie is a pleasant surprise because the animation is more careless than in Astérix' previous adaptations for the cinema, although it's a bit basic. Concerning these "works", of course they're fanciful and eccentric but they're irresistibe, varied, full of modern anachronisms (like the chips in the sixth work when Obélix must eat a pantagruelian meal). Besides, the anachronism is a common thing in Astérix' adventures.

The best moments of the movie are the pantagruelian meal, the sequences of the hypnosis and the crazy flat. At the end, in spite of tiresome sequences, peculiar to Astérix's adaptations, I think about the (useless) battle against the Romans at the beginning, the movie is a happy entertainment and the best animation film with Astérix.