Asterix versus Caesar (1985)

 

When two members of their village are captured by the Romans, the Gauls Asterix and Obelisk - along with their canine companion Dogmatix, who may honestly be the brains of the operation - set out to recover them. As always, Asterix has the magic potion to help him deal with any resistance they might encounter. Obelisk, of course, has no need of the potion, having fallen into a cauldron of it as a child and being permanently blessed with the immense strength it confers.

Finding the missing two villagers will not be easy, however, as they have been shuttled around the Empire.  Asterix and Obelisk follow their trail first to North Africa, then to Rome itself, where the intrepid adventurers must take on the role of gladiators in order to save the day.

This was the first Asterix film in nearly a decade, after 1976 offering The Twelve Tasks of Asterix.  It represents a return to the 'classic' formula of the series, and therefore lacks the idiosyncrasies of that film. It's based on pre-existing Asterix comics, rather than being an original story, and it doesn't acknowledge that is is fiction, or break the fourth wall.  

One innovation it does introduce is to give Dogmatix a more significant role.  While the brave white pup has appeared in the previous movies, and even helped the heroes out of a jam in Asterix and Cleopatra, he definitely never got this much screen time or attention, before.  While this change was likely motivated by the character's popularity, that does not in any way make it a bad idea.  This film's "Dogmatix in the sewers" sequence is one of the few Asterix movie scenes I remember from my childhood.

This film also has the best animation of any Asterix film to date: presumably it had more time and resources behind it, as well as another decade of development in animation technology.

Despite these positive elements, though, I wasn't a huge fan of it.  One negative way in which it returns to the classic formula is that the Gauls come across as rather smug and over-confident.  It's a nice change of tone when Asterix temporarily loses his magic potion and can't just win every fight without breaking a sweat.  The pacing also feels off: it tries to pack a lot of scenes into its mere 74 minute run-time, with the result that many sequences felt under-developed and rushed, to me.

Ultimately, probably only one for fans of the comics.