Konterr Brilliant and touching

Comwayon A Disappointing Continuation

Ariella Broughton It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

Sarita Rafferty There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

Sam Panico Based upon Jacques Tardi's historical based fantasy comic book, Les Aventures extraordinaires d'Adèle Blanc-Sec, this film takes place in the secret history of our world before the first World War. Today, we'd call the style of Tardi's comic steampunk, but don't let that name sway you: this movie is awesome.Two of Tardi's stories inspired this movie: Adèle and the Beast and Mummies on Parade, so this film takes place in 1912 Paris.Luc Besson (La Femme Nikita, The Fifth Element, Léon: The Professional, Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets) is one of the foremost creators in the cinéma du look style which Wikipedia claims favors "style over substance, spectacle over narrative." His visual style dominates everything he creates, including this movie which is the movie that The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen should have been.Let me see if I can sum up the craziness that this film contains. Professor Espérandieu (Philippe Nahon, who played the nameless butcher in three Gaspar Noé films, Carne, I Stand Alone and Irréversible) hatches a pterodactyl which ends up killing a politician who is having an affair in a taxicab with a showgirl. The President of France demands that the National Police handle the sightings of the dinosaur, with Inspector Albert Caponi handling the investigation.We finally meet our heroine, Adèle Blanc-Sec, who works as a travel writer and is on a quest to find the mummified Patmosis, who was the doctor for Pharoah Ramses II. It turns out that she wants to revive the famous physician to save the life of her sister Agathe, who has had a tennis accident. Her arch enemy Professor Dieuleveult (Mathieu Amalric, Quantum of Solace) also wants the mummy, but she defeats him and travels back to Paris.She needs Professor Espérandieu's help to revive the mummy, but he's now on death row as he's been blamed for the dinosaur attacks. However, big game hunter Justin de Saint-Hubert is trying to kill the flying monster while Andrej Zborowski (Nicolas Giraud, Taken) wants to save it. Just as Espérandieu is to be executed, Adèle and Zborowski tame the pterodactyl and fly it to the rescue.While enjoying tea with the revived mummy, we learn that he was really a physicist, not a physician, so he is unable to help revive Agathe. However, Saint-Hubert fatally shoots the pterosaur along with Espérandieu.Adèle and Patmosis go to the Louvre, where they revive all of the mummies, including the Pharoah, who revives Agathe. Deciding that he wants to see Paris, the undead Egyptian leads his entire court into the night.After all that adventure, Adèle decides to relax on a cruise. But as we see her nemesis with an evil grin, we learn that she's on the Titanic! What a set up for a sequel, as is the credits scene where Ménard tries to get his revenge on Saint-Hubert. I really loved this movie. It's kind of amazing that it got such a limited release in the U.S. because it's such an imaginative film. It also looks gorgeous, with perfectly integrated effects. Plus, I laughed several times during this and the humor didn't get in the way of the tale.This film was intended to be the first of three films, but it's been a few years since it was made. When asked by Den of Geek in 2016 if there would be a sequel, Besson said, "I would love to, because I love this character Adele. She's basically the grandmother of Indiana Jones. But it was in French and it's difficult in France to do films with a certain kind of budget because it's just in French. But I hope we can."

rannynm If you like movies that take place in the early 1900s, then you'll love Luc Besson's "The Extraordinary Adventures of Adele Blanc-Sec." In this movie, there is a huge bird egg in a museum that hasn't hatched. They keep it there for visitors to see. It was never supposed to hatch and one day, it hatches and something that looks like a huge pterodactyl comes out. It screeches and people try to capture it but it is just too fast for them. At one point, a group of people are all lined up to see something in a tomb and they release something, I can't tell you what it is because that will ruin the movie for you. Later, the cops want to hang Adele for things that she has been saying and she is only concerned about finding something to heal her sister. Adele finds a mummy that people think no one can ever find. Then, she talks to it and no one believes her. When the people of the town see the mummy they are really scared. In one part of the movie Adele is in a cave, sees a fire behind her and gets inside a sarcophagus to save herself.My favorite part in this movie is when the mummy dresses up in a suit and asks someone for directions. The guy says "of course" and faints. I really like the music in this film. It's great.This movie's moral message is that no matter what, you should always do whatever is best to help your family and friends.I recommend this movie to ages 11 to 18 and I suggest you go with your parents because it is really intense. You should really watch this movie if you like adventures.Reviewed by Valdi B. KIDS FIRST! Film Critic. For more film reviews, go to kidsfirst.org.

fionagreen1 Despite the potential that this movie had, being produced by the same man that crafted the wonderful 'Amelie', I found I couldn't progress beyond the opening half hour due to a blatant disrespect, and open endorsement of cruelty towards animals.In two separate opening scenes we see the title character demand that an animal carry her, lest she kill it.Not long afterwards, the heroine is seen conversing with the wife of a picador, who proclaims that her late husband was as strong as his bulls.So, all sentient life is upon this Earth purely for our transport or amusement? I'm appalled to say the least, particularly with the condonement of bullfighting, a barbaric act perpetrated by sick-minded individuals who find pleasure in torturing other animals (that's right - we're animals, too) to death for the amusement of a baying crowd of like-minded cretins.To have such a plain disregard for life and suffering is loathsome, but to spread this vile mental illness through 'art' is doubly abysmal.If only death were a conscious entity, so that when it came for these warped individuals it would know them well, and would offer no quarter based upon their disrespect for life.Of all the animals in the natural world, we are the only one to have overcome survival, and now wallow in lifestyles of impossible opulence. You'd think with this luxury, we'd be more understanding and sympathetic to all the other flora and fauna that still battles with evolutions test, rather than taking advantage of our position in order to mock the animal life (that we once belonged to) and force it to suffer for our own sick ends.I realise that this review hasn't focused on the movie much, but the message is far more important than muck like this.Remember - all life on this planet evolved from the very same single-celled ancestor, and no one form of life has any more right to be here than another. If anything, we humans, are the lowest of the lot, since we contribute nothing but destruction and death towards the environment that created us, unlike every other sentient being, which respects their surroundings and co-evolves.Thank you for reading this rushed, barely articulate, but impassioned cry.

dromasca My unusual relationship with films inspired by comics continues to develop, as for various reasons I have seen a lot of these in the last few weeks. I picked 'Les aventures extraordinaires d'Adèle Blanc-Sec' this week at the end of an exhausting day of work (and heat outside) as I was looking for easy entertainment that would not require efforts from the few cells in my brain that staid awake. More or less I got what I wanted.I think that I know the reason because of which I enjoy more the films inspired by French comics than the American ones, and feel more comfortable in the company of Asterix than in the one of Superman, Batman, or Spiderman. Unlike many of my American (and not only American) friends I grew on the French comics journals, especially 'Vaillant' (later named 'Pif gadget'). Second to 'Vaillant' was 'Pilote' and this is where the character of Adele Blanc-Sec created by Jacques Tardi comes from.Adele is a French newspaper journalist in the years before the First World War. She is beautiful, she travels around the world, she never seems to lose energy. Well, she's a cartoon character. She also has a fantastic sense of humor, and ridicules her enemies with the same easiness she beats them with various weapons or tricks. The first sequences that see her travel to Egypt in order to find, bring to France and bring back to life a physician of the Pharaohs who is of course the only person dead or alive who can save the life of her sister are both well filmed (as is the full movie), funny and a reverence to Indiana Jones.Certainly script author and director Luc Besson wrote and directed more 'important' and 'serious' films. Here and in other films made lately he seems to enjoy himself with making easier stories, and targeting all audiences. While I miss films like the original 'La Femme Nikita', 'Leon' or 'The Fifth Element', I cannot deny that I enjoyed this film at many moments, including the thick comical parodies of the characters at the start of the 20th century (policemen, scientists, and even le president de la Republique) or of the ancient Egyptians on a walk to know Paris, a Paris emptied by heavy traffic but already with most landmarks in place. Louise Bourgoin as Adele Blanc-Sec is sexy and funny, and as the last scene shows her boarding the Titanic I am wondering whether Besson intents to locate there her next adventure. Ah, a parody of Cameron's movie, what a sweet revenge it could be!