AKA Asterix & Obelix: I Drakens Rike, in Swedish, as I saw it...

Watched this one in a small room. Unexpectedly small - a kids room, it felt like. At the cinema. Where rooms are usually bigger!

I sat there like an adult in a ball pit, and felt particularly out of place as adults came in with their kids, and eyed me suspiciously. A loner on the best row. Dead center.

Not sure if they envied the placement or wondered what I was doing there, or both, but who cares! It was a fun movie. For all ages. Comedy. I had every right to be there.

Considering the dark things I've been watching lately I needed something like this too.

And considering it actually isn't a kids movie I wondered how all these parents felt about having brought their kids there when it was over. Even if the more adult stuff's suitable veiled, so it does work pretty well for all. For example Cleopatra at one point towards the end of the film says to Caesar something along the lines of: I'm moving out! You won't see my small pyramid ever again.

There's a lot of quick-wittery like that, with new Rome-era names as well, like the unsinkable shipper Titanix... who surprisingly enough does make good of his name!

Though I wonder if there is as much witticism as there was in the earlier era of Asterix & Obelix films. I recall there being more.

Now it seems the movie's all the more set on trends and politics - with for example Asterix temporarily opting for a vegan diet at the start of the film, and a lot of women in the cast speaking up on topics of female empowerment. Some is fun, but they overdo it a bit I feel, it seems done more so for virtue-flagging than for the sake of comedy.

The special effects and trademark air-time punches remain the same though, visually there's nothing to complain about, and the step into China... that's cool.

I love the martial arts and Eastern influence additions overall (the acupuncture lol), and even if the choreography's not perfect it was better than I thought it'd be.

I wonder who managed the martial arts choreography specifically...

Guillaume Canet and Gilles Lellouche are now the two actors that portray the iconic Asterix and Obelix duo. They look very similar to the earlier ones.
I wondered if they might've been the same ones initially...

Wonder if they sounded the same too. Unfortunately I don't think the Swedish dubs did this movie justice. Sometimes they don't even lip-sync properly.

Vincent Cassel plays Caesar and Marion Cotillard (Lily in the Taxi movies - still just as beautiful!) Cleopatra, and though they look different they seem perfectly suited to their roles too, and there are other notable French names like Franck Gastambide in the mix, whom I don't think I've seen before... (nevermind, I have - action movies)

The most notable Asian presences are played by Leanna Chea, Linh-Dan Pham and Julie Chen. I wonder if I recognize some of the less notable names from Asian cinema otherwise. Do they know martial arts? Do they do HK action too? Some look familiar, though I'm bad with names...

There's an unexpected Zlatan Ibrahimović cameo as well (I did not expect that!) which of course is awesome. Even if I'm not a fan. He's Swedish. It's cool.

There's also a lot of romance, and with that... I wish there was closure.

More closure.

Obelix seems wrought into a distance-based relationship, with the potential to live alone until his old and gray, and Asterix loses the potential love of his life to an Easterner with unusually golden hair, whose repetition is fraught with fright and shame... it usually ends that way, but then again didn't they have at least a little better luck? Was there no replacement love? Wasn't there at least a little temporary romance before they get back to simple but ample friendship; brothership, that special bond that only Asterix and Obelix have?

I'm a little disappointed... I enjoyed this overall, but still a little disappointed.

 rated 3.5/5: not bad at all