bob the moo When the Roman soldiers are defeated yet again, a rumour starts that the Gauls must be gods of some sort. Eager to find out the truth, Cesar challenges them to complete 12 tasks just as Hercules once did. If they pass all 12 then he will concede they must be gods and will leave them in peace. Asterix and Obelix are selected to complete the tasks and set out with a Roman administrator to record the tasks.Although some of the little tasks in this bitty film are imaginative and funny (the admin one for example), the majority of this film is deeply flawed. The first few tasks are rubbish but some of them get better as they go. The administration one starts out very imaginative but gets silly in the style of the rest of the film. The humour here is not the witty stuff of the books but noisy childish stuff that I simply didn't find very funny. The fragmented nature of the plot should have made it easy to have some tasks be slapstick and others be very smart, but instead it goes for an unfunny sort of jaunty humour that doesn't work.The actors hurt the film more than I could have imagined. I relate this to the English version of the film, perhaps the other languages had better actors more suited to the roles, but the English one is awful - I though Craig Charles was not a good Asterix until I saw this film! All the voices are very whiney and nasal and simply do not suit any of the characters - Asterix and Obelix in particular are just plain wrong and that little admin may have been amusing for about two seconds but after a while his voice simply grates. The boring and poorly cast voices serve to make the film feel deadly dull and humourless; they really sucked the life out of it.Overall this film has a few moments but generally it is poor. The animation and music are far to round, colourful, cheerful and lacking any precision or wit. The humour is far to basic to bear the name Asterix and all in all this is a fairly painful film for all but young kids and Asterix fans who have the patience and grace of a saint.

dbdumonteil This is the year 50 before JC. All the Gaul is occupied by the Romans. All the Gaul? No! A little village populated by some irreducibles Gallics resists again and always to the invader. This situation gets on Jules César's nerves who's starting to compare these Gallics as gods. To have proof of this, he sets them 12 works. Astérix and Obélix are chosen to take up the challenge... This animation film isn't an adaptation from one of Astérix' albums, it's an original screenplay that inspired from the Greek mythology with Hercule's works. The movie is a pleasant surprise because the animation is more careless than in Astérix' previous adaptations for the cinema, although it's a bit basic. Concerning these "works", of course they're fanciful and eccentric but they're irresistibe, varied, full of modern anachronisms (like the chips in the sixth work when Obélix must eat a pantagruelian meal). Besides, the anachronism is a common thing in Astérix' adventures.The best moments of the movie are the pantagruelian meal, the sequences of the hypnosis and the crazy flat. At the end, in spite of tiresome sequences, peculiar to Astérix's adaptations, I think about the (useless) battle against the Romans at the beginning, the movie is a happy entertainment and the best animation film with Astérix.

PlanecrazyIkarus Perhaps I should watch this movie again, now. As a child, this was always my least favourite Asterix. It felt more like "Asterix in Wonderland" to me than any of the others. Sure, it has its unique and unforgettable moments (restaurant, hypnotist and invisible bridge stand out), but it also had its weird, psychedelic, "Yellow Submarine" moments (the Underground, the bureaucracy).So of all Asterix movies, this will always remain the oddest, least linear. That alone might make it the classic so many people believe it to be, but to me, as a kid, it made it simply bizarre. And I did not like the bizarre.If Yellow Submarine or Alice in Wonderland are your thing, then this is the Asterix of your dreams. Otherwise, you will probably enjoy some of it, but I doubt whether any one person will like all 12 episodes.

action-6 This is one of the best Asterix-movies, but it isn`t as good as "Ceasar`s surprise"(my favorite). The Gauls and Ceasar have made a bet. The Gauls must prove that they are gods by doing 12 extremely difficult tasks, and they will become Ceasar`s slaves if they fail. This is clearly worth a look, and surprisingly you won`t find this story in any of the comics. 8/10