First of all, this movie is very beautiful to behold. Great cinematography, slick cutting, good capturing of the dynamics of car racing and the events on and around a race track. While this movie is not a major Hollywood production, the director did a tremendous job on blending narrative and real imagery from an actual event, the famous 24 Hours of Le Mans 2002.Years ago, I read a few of Michel Vaillant's adventures so I had a basic understanding of what this movie was about and of course, was keen to see this stuff being adapted. And watching this movie, this is what you really need to keep in mind: It's an adaption of a comic strip which is mostly focused on telling a good action story and less on character development, pace of narration and the like.Some of the scenes are pasted together as they would have been in the comic strip, where subplots are sometimes told within 1-2 pictures. That way, it is fair to say it's a suitable adaption of the original strip, but understandably, not everybody may like it. I read some fans of the comic strip do hate the movie. I can understand this, but admittedly, adaptations are prone to being opposed in general. You simply can't make it right for everybody.The movie mostly suffers from the mediocre script. The writing is blunt at times. The plot comes up with a nice twist (SPOILER: Vaillant in place of Cramer trying to save his dad driving best he could, while Wood fighting him, thinking he's Cramer :)) and most arguably, a better script would have made more out of this. As said, it's a comic strip adaption. Even then, some of the characters are simply non-credible. Esp. Ruth Wong and partly Julie Wood (SPOILER: who acts like the Merry Widow after losing her man in a car accident. And just slapping Cramer for sabotaging her man's car, no comment). All the characters remain flat. Add some 5-10 minutes of extra playing time, a few lines of profound dialog, some strong punchlines and you'd get the movie to where it should be. Not sure if we will see another Vaillant movie. Don't believe it cashed in its expenses. It surely suffered from being under-advertised. Compare this to blockbusters such as Fast and Furious and all its derivatives. For sure it's not worse than these.

First of all to gerhard24's comments - the cars at LeMans use normal petrol however, they have a special refueling system with two hoses, one on each side of the car: fuel in one side, air out the other so you're right, they couldn't have refueled at a regular filling station. As for the smoke coming out the front of the Leader: this is perfectly accurate as the Panoz LPM1 (aka "Leader") has it's engine in the front - one of the only racing prototypes at LeMans that does.Anyway, I found the movie really disappointing. I was at LeMans 2002 when the two extra cars ran to film the sequences for this movie. We were all really looking forward to seeing the final result and frankly I was gutted when I did. Lame story with far too many inaccuracies to make it it any way believable: no way anyone could run out onto the track (Odessa) and and and....They missed out completely on building up the atmosphere before the race and from the way it was filmed it looked like only the Vaillants and Leaders were racing.However, in Germany the DVD s well worth buying just for the additional material: making of and a series of complete laps of LeMans filmed from inside the Vaillant (Courage) and the Leader (Panoz). Great stuff! Dump the movie though.

I never read any Michel Vaillant comic book. Maybe this is the reason why I found this film so great: the sound of roaring cars, the pictures of the silent sky, slow motion on details, expressive colours and a thrilling plot. Two enemies, Vaillant and Leader teams, see each other again after 13 years during the 24h of Le Mans, ready for a showdown. While the Leader team never heard about fair play, Michel Vaillant tries to make the best out of a desperate situation. 15 Minutes before the end of the race it seems that he has no chance at all to win the race ... So, if you like racing games (e.g. Project Gotham Racing) this film is a must. After watching it, grab your joystick or wheel , charge Forza Motorsport ans blast your enemies !

I could only bare watching the first 20 minutes until I started skipping chapters and using fast forward on the remote. The acting is really bad, and my grandmother drives better then this! The driving is quite slow and not spectacular at all. For a great car chase have a look at Ronin (de Niro) and of course Bullit (McQueen). For any car enthusiast this movie is a real pain to watch. I did not expect a documentary but at least some fast driving, good acting and some base in the real world.I read on the back of the cover that Luc Besson had a 200.000.000 Kr(!). Where did it go? Stay away, is my advice.