Asterix and Cleopatra

This film exists because of an insult. The first Asterix film, 1967's Asterix the Gaul, was made without René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo even knowing about it; the publisher and editor did not think to tell them. The pair first saw it as a finished picture at a private screening and were furious at how cheap the animation looked. They then demanded that production on Asterix and the Golden Sickle be halted and its nearly complete material destroyed. Then they took the job themselves. Goscinny and Uderzo directed Asterix and Cleopatra, the only time either did so. Raymond Leblanc produced, with Dargaud and Belvision. The seventy-two-minute film opened in France on 19 December 1968, and it is plainly better than its predecessor in both animation and music. Cleopatra, stung by Caesar, promises to build a palace in three months and dumps the job on the architect Numerobis. Help arrives from Gaul. Who it is for: families who want an adaptation that carries the comic's humour to the screen intact. Who it is not for: viewers used to modern animation polish. The movement is limited, the rhythm is old-fashioned, and some jokes depend on the language they were written in.