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Asterix and the Vikings Movie Review

Asterix and the Vikings is a 2006 French animated adventure comedy film directed by Stefan Fjeldmark. It is one of the lesser Asterix adaptations.

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“Fear is what makes us brave.

Real courage is when you overcome your fear“

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The Vikings discover a location devoid of people after another raid. The enemies have destroyed them, so they are on the chase for a Champion of Fear, who can teach them to fly, making them invincible. ‘Asterix and the Normans’ is one of the better installments in the Asterix comic book series, but unfortunately it did not lead to a great film adaptation for a couple of reasons.

One is its unfaithfulness to the source material. The other bigger issue is the emphasis on new made-up characters and arcs that weren’t in the comic. These were included to freshen things up a bit, but all they did was make the movie more annoying.

There is the newly introduced character of Abba, who just did not work. I do realize that they wanted to add some feminine energy into this male-oriented story, but this female Viking was underdeveloped and rather forgettable. Not a single scene of hers was interesting in any way.

I also did not quite care for the scenes starring Justforkix. He was not all that interesting in the comic itself and here his role is enlarged even more, which led to a frustrating viewing experience. Whenever these movies sideline the main characters, we have an issue as they are the best characters. The two still got a couple of moments to shine, but those were too fleeting.

Asterix and the Vikings does have pretty good animation. It is a more modern type of animation that signals the new century while still not feeling too timely. The character designs are fantastic and the overall color palette was colorful without being garish. It’s a pleasing film to look at and its atmosphere was terrific too.

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But the score was horrendous as the flick focused on modern songs from 80s and 90s in particular, which led to ridiculous imagery of these Vikings and Gauls dancing and singing to contemporary music. It simply did not work. The Vikings themselves are just as endearing and as funny as you’d expect and their interactions with the Gauls were priceless, but too often the movie focused on other less interesting elements instead of the aforementioned dynamic.