The Extraordinary Adventures of Adèle Blanc-Sec

IMDB
First time viewed: Yes
Current Release: Yes
Watched With: Myself

Luc Besson has been producing some great action films over the last few years but his own directorial efforts have of late been more children oriented. His latest is this rather lavishly produced production based on some comic book series I've never heard of before and know nothing about.

The film looks far grander than it's reported budget would suggest. The action sequences are not overly complicated but with someone like Besson at the helm you can rest assured they are handled competently. The period design, the costumes and locations and all the FX work look great.

The story is alright, like the title suggests there's some pretty extraordinary stuff going on that they only vaguely explain away. A Pterodactyl in turn of the century Paris is pretty cool. As are all those mummies at the end, they are the best thing in the film. My biggest problem was just not being interested with Adèle Blanc-Sec. I don't have any knowledge of the character and this film doesn't spend any time introducing her, which is fine, but I just wasn't engaged by the performance.

Still, the whole film is a few steps above any recent family adventure movies I've seen of late. Presumably they will make more, because this film has no real ending, an exceedingly annoying habit that is becoming more commonplace with fantasy adventure series adaptations. In fact this one finishes with a cliffhanger involving the Titanic so I am somewhat intrigued as to what a sequel will offer. As such there's nothing in the works that I know of so this could well be another in a long line of failed movie franchises. We'll see.