Absolutely Fantastic

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Somehow it just has never quiet worked out to translate the "Asterix"-comics to the big screen. For one, the graphic novels always had an appeal for both young and old. More than being your average, "funny comic-book adventures", "Asterix" contained insight and informative, valuable facts on cultural references, language and history. Not all of those would reveal themselves to the adolescent reader, but appealed to the older crowd (generally the parents). Indeed, I dare say that the Latin which most of kids from my times learned came straight out of "Asterix".The cartoons on the other hand, perhaps with exception of the first two films, "Asterix the Gaul" and "Asterix and Cleopatra" (that caught the essence of the first album) and the psychedelic "Twelve Tasks of Asterix", clearly catered to an adolescent audience. Combining various story lines from the comics, the wit and cultural and political references were mostly been replaced with juvenile jokes and slapstick.Generally most of the Asterix-films are an amalgamation of various comics. In the case of "Asterix conquers America" the story sticks pretty close to "Asterix and the Big Crossing" (but excluding the meetings between the two Gauls with the "actual" discoverers of America, namely a bunch of Danish Vikings). The visuals are okay if you prefer computer-animations over hand-drawings (which I don't), but lack the richness in details that was typical in the graphic novels. However, the gags and jokes are so infantile and predicable, that I doubt it will raise many laughs even during a screening of some children's channel. If you never liked the cartoons, give it a miss and stick to the comics. If you enjoyed the early cartoons, it still is one of the weakest of the whole series.To those who criticize that there are some genitalia visible in the film, I'll let you in on a secret: We all have them, we've all seen them and very little ill has come from this fact. Only dirty minds think dirty things.3 from 10 points

I remember watching this flick as a kid, so last night I took a trip down memory lane by watching it on Youtube.The first two acts were great, but the third one sucks. The finale was rushed. Normally the climax of a film is meant to action packed and entertaining. Here, it just flies by and you don't care. I didn't buy the relationship between Obelix and the Indian girl. The scene where they say goodbye is meant to be sad, but we feel nothing because we only had one scene of them together. Maybe if they had more scenes, that goodbye scene would work properly.Craig Charles is miscast as Asterix. When you see Asterix, do you think to yourself "Dave Lister should play him"?The guy playing Obelix works though. But the star of the movie is Christopher Biggins' villain. He's such a kiss ass, yet his plan works. And Chris had fun camping it up.I liked the Oxford/Camberidge joke and the Romans forming into a pie and slicing a piece. That joke was well done.The CGI sucks and it's not a film that'll grab you. It doesn't leave you with the urge to watch it again. Worth watching if you like Asterix, but its not as good as The Twelve Tasks Of Asterix which is my fave Asterix movie.

Although I had never heard of the character "Asterix", I decided to chance the classic cartoon. Upon watching, and reading the synopsis of the film, I clearly understood the "effect" it reasonably portrayed. However, I also realized that within this film, there is clearly a nude scene of male genitalia! (The man had his pants down. *Also noted in a recent post in the message board.*) I myself was just as surprised. As an adult, I laugh at "hidden jokes" a lot of cartoons insinuate and even word around what should be "adult humor". However, this is flat out unrighteous! They may have gotten away with that in the 70s, but "new age" cartoons can only give fart jokes and bare-bum shots! (Including their resort to subliminal messages for the older generations watching along.) Rated 2/5 due to the distasteful display of a crotch-shot, but short framed enough that most (luckily) don't catch-- sorry kids.

Knowing that the Druid Getafix is only one of the mighty Gauls capable of brewing the magic potion, the Romans plan to kidnap him and throw him over the edge of the world (the world, of course being flat). The Romans carry out their plan but are pursued by Asterix and Obelix. However when the edge of the world comes Asterix and Obelix don't find death – they find America and must search for Getafix before their village runs low on potion and is overrun.In terms of story, this film takes one of the weak Asterix books and deviates from it – big mistake! The Asterix books are generally so good that to try and improve or change them for film is a bad move. The story is OK for kids though – even faithful it's pretty simple – however what it loses is the wit of the books. There are a few good lines early on, but most of this is slapstick that doesn't please anyone but young kids.The animation is great compared to other Asterix films – this uses some nice visual tricks, the best being the opening shot of the globe that turns out to be flat and only Europe! The voices are also pretty good – Craig Charles is a pretty good Asterix once you get used to his scouse accent. Howard Lewis is not a great Obelix – but at least he isn't playing him like a fool. However Christopher Biggins is poor and the support characters are weak. Surprisingly for a mid-90's film, this is full of racist stereotypes – from rubber lipped blacks, to `ging-gang-gooley' speaking Indians.The poor characterization also infects the main characters – for example the relationship between Asterix and Obelix is usually affectionate but here they bicker all the time and don't come across as friends.Overall this film gets the animation just right and the voices are pretty good. It's just a real shame that the film then gets the characters, the story and the comedy very wrong. Still, it's good enough for kids.