‘Brutus stop playing with that knife, you’ll hurt somebody’

- Julius Ceaser 

I loved the Asterix comic books when I was a kid. I had all of the books and read them until the pages were falling out. For me it was the Asterix and Tintin books (and the Tintin cartoon series which aired back in the early-mid 90s) The comic books got me into reading. 

Only I was never aware there were animated cartoons films based on the Asterix books. Until today! 

Asterix; The Twelve Tasks of Asterix (1975), is the third animated film based on the Asterix comic book comics.

Goscinny & Uderzo co-wrote and co-directed the film through their short-lived animation studio, Studios Idefix; a cute brand logo at the start of the film features little Dogmatix yapping away in parody of the MGM lion. Unlike the two earlier Asterix animated films, Asterix the Gaul (1967) and Asterix and Cleopatra (1968), the Gaul’s third cinematic outing takes full advantage of the animated form. The visual gags are fast and furious, and animation is brilliant for the time! 

Asterix (in the English dub, ideally voiced by British comedian Bill Oddie) and his faithful companion Obelix help defend their Gaulish village from the Roman Empire with the help of the druid Getafix’s magic potion. To those new to the franchise, you only need to know that Asterix is small but clever, and Obelix – whose strength is permanently enhanced from having fallen into the potion as a baby – is large but dim-witted. Julius Caesar, frustrated by the constant humiliation provided by the Gauls, presents chief Vitalstatistix with a challenge: if his finest champions can successfully perform twelve impossible feats, Hercules-style, then he will surrender all of Rome. Asterix and Obelix set forth at once, guided by the mousy Roman envoy Caius Tiddlus; thus begins a most episodic adventure in which each task becomes a comic vignette with its own unique style. The fun lies in discovering what the task will be, and then trying to deduce how Asterix and Obelix will overcome it.

You could also call the film’s humor Pythonesque, which is perhaps one of the reasons why the British dub isn’t so distracting.

Though it never quite rises above the G-level, there are hints of adult sexuality, such as the partial nudity of the film’s briefly-glimpsed Venus, and the feminine temptations of the Isle of Pleasure, where large-breasted, scantily-clad vixens express surprise that Obelix desires nothing more than to feast on wild boar. But then, Uderzo’s women were always a lot more alluring than Hergé’s. The film does show its age with a disco-music dance on the Isle of Pleasure, and the overbearing main theme by Gerard Calvi, but despite a few caveats, The Twelve Tasks of Asterix remains a notable animated film of the 70’s, succeeding in its intention to create an original Asterix graphic novel for the big screen directly from the character’s creators.

Definitely worth checking out if you like the books!