The Extraordinary Adventures of Adele Blanc-Sec

             
      
Director:  Luc Besson
Year:  2010
Rating: 7.0
Country: France
For some reason I missed who the director was during the opening credits and so didn't realize till the end that it was Luc Besson. I don't think I would have ever guessed. Especially coming after more ambitious hard hitting films like Nikita, Leon, The Fifth Element and The Messenger. This is adapted from a French comic book series and is a gentle fun adventure fantasy taking place in the early 1900's in Paris and Egypt. Adele is a kindred cousin to Indiana Jones escaping with a mummy from an Egyptian tomb and taming and flying a Pterosaur born thousands of years ago but never never hatched. Now it has. The special effects are excellent and the designs of Paris 1912 are realistic. It has all the makings of a sequel especially as it ends with the heroine boarding the Titanic with two men aboard with instructions to kill her. I guess it never came. Also, it seems that I watched the cut version from Shout Factory (there was an unedited one as well) which according to IMDB is shorter by about ten minutes. Which sucks.



The plot is a little bizarre but here goes  - Adele goes to Egypt to steal the mummy doctor to the Pharaoh Ramses. She thinks she has him. Who she wants to cure her sister who fell on a hat pin five years previously and went into a coma - with the hat pin sticking all the way through her head. Ok. Got that? She has an old professor friend who has the mental powers to bring the mummy back to life but in the meantime he brings the Pterosaur to life and it has killed a few people. After an Indiana type adventure in Egypt she brings the mummy home but the Professor is in jail and she needs to break him out. That is where flying the Pterosaur comes into play. Turns out the mummy was not his doctor but there happens to be an exhibit in a museum of Ramses and his servants. So off she goes. It is fun with some imagination, comically exaggerated characters and the weight of a feather. The actress who plays Adele is Louise Bourgoin who is lovely and adorable but I have never come across her in anything. Would have enjoyed a sequel.