harpguy:
I am confused by this! Admittedly I've never seen any of the films you've mentioned, but Adele Blanc-Sec remains one of my favourite things ever.
You haven’t seen The Fifth Element, either? I am well and truly shocked, I who believed it was a prerequisite in a geek/nerd life. Perhaps I am too old.
I have conflicted feelings about Adèle Blanc-Sec, which amused me a lot, but thankfully enough I may attribute my liking of it to the casting of the adorable and talented Louise Bourgoin in the main role.
As someone who grew up on the comics—which was far from being a given, generation-wise—and loves them to bits, it’s hard not to compare, though. The printed adventures of Mlle Blanc-Sec have more than a few qualities and one of those is, famously enough, their author Jacques Tardi’s talent for recreating the Paris of a certain era and its atmosphere with great finesse. What the comics subtly capture, amidst a strange and grotesque imaginarium that is simply unique, the film pulverises. It may be a bit annoying at times. The uniqueness of Tardi’s universe also serves to render Besson’s habit to regurgitate other people’s work without much personality frankly insufferable, too, if you don’t prevent yourself from thinking while watching his films. Here, we have an odd mélange of Amélie Poulain and the adventures of Tintin with The Mummy. It’d be slightly less of a problem, I assume, if only the will behind it all weren’t too obviously to please the largest audience possible whilst repeating as much stuff they previously liked as possible and stuffing it into a single production.
On the other hand, most secondary characters were surprisingly good in their idiosyncratic absurdity and, as I said, Louise Bourgoin is simply perfect.
