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."

THE EXTRAORDINARY ADVENTURES OF ADELE BLANC-SEC is the latest movie from the normally reliable French director Luc Besson, and sad to say it's a complete piece of nonsense. Apparently the big-screen adaptation of some popular French comic books, this sees the titular character embarking on a whimsical fantasy adventure involving dinosaurs and mummies.It's as silly as it sounds, but I had hoped for some exotic, globe-trotting intrigue - after all, we mustn't forget that the French are the ones who brought us the wonderful TINTIN comics, after all. But this turns out to be an oddball affair through and through, with the humour aimed at a distinctly juvenile audience and yet adult scenes elsewhere.Sadly, this is one of those films that delights in sub-par CGI animation, so the pterodactyl scenes are pretty naffy. The nadir comes with a pair of CGI animated gorillas - don't expect RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES style quality here, these two are horrendous and it makes me wonder about the state of film-making when it's cheaper to animate two gorillas than to simply visit the zoo and film them with a traditional camera.There are many familiar French faces in the cast, including Mathieu Amalric (MUNICH) and Giles Lellouche (POINT BLANK), but most play caricatures hidden beneath prosthetics and make-up. Louise Bourgoin's titular heroine is a real bitch of a character, somebody who's rude and hateful to everybody around her, so that makes her hard to warm to. In fact, the only stuff I enjoyed in this film were the reanimated mummies, who are genuinely funny and wacky creations. Everything else is a chore.

I love the Adèle Blanc-Sec comic books so I looked forward to watching this. The film is quite faithful to the plot of the comics and the characters in the movie are extraordinarily alike their drawn equivalents. But the similarity stops there. The mysterious atmosphere of the comic books are sadly replaced by very broad humor thus making the a children's movie out of the adult comics.I was also disappointed by the actress in the lead role as she was far too young healthy and beautiful to play the strange Adèle of the comic series. The CGI effects didn't help and it was too brightly filmed. It was tiresome with all the swooping camera views. The slow bullet through the air has been done a million times before. The director did not seem to trust the source. This could have been a cool, strange and bloody version of the comic books but instead it was too childish for grown-ups. I am not surprised there is no sequel to this film.

A charming and frantic farce by Besson. Based on a series of French comics, The Extraordinary Adventures Of Adele Blanc-Sec is a French version of Indiana Jones, with a lot more magic and cartoonish behaviour. The film is quite messy in parts as one story becomes a tool to advance another story. The film begins with an old professor with psychic abilities, waking a pterodactyl from its egg. Meanwhile, in Egypt, Adele Blanc-Sec is looking for the mummified corpse of Rameses' physician so she can bring it back to life and cure her comatose sister. These two plots soon intertwine, but not in an incredibly smooth fashion. The make-up design is wonderful, and typically OTT French. Prosthetics are used to exaggerate ears, noses, teeth and age. This leads to a number of visually memorable characters. Unfortunately, with so much going on many characters get lost. Amalric is only present for a few minutes, while others are shown too often. Still, this is a ridiculous farce which revels in its absurdity. The CGI is convincing and adds a lot to the later emotional scenes. Hopefully they'll be more to come.