Official Synopsis
The year is 1912. This is the story of an intrepid young reporter Adèle Blanc-Sec and her quest for the power of life over death. Her journey would take her to distant lands to face many dangers beneath the sands. She will go to any lengths to achieve her aims, including sailing to Egypt to tackle mummies of all shapes and sizes. Meanwhile in Paris, a 136 million-year old pterodactyl egg on display in the natural history museum has mysteriously hatched, and the creature subjects the city to a reign of terror from the skies. But nothing fazes Adele Blanc-Sec, whose adventures include many more extraordinary surprises…
Not completely knowing the history behind the character, I wasn’t sure what to expect from The Extraordinary Adventures of Adèle Blanc-Sec. The film starts out explaining its characters, almost to the point where there’s too much explanation. Born in the late 1970s inside of a comic strip, you can see the comic side of things through this over-explained beginning, as the movie jumps from character-to-character, even the minor ones. By the end of the film, the explanations of everyone still seemed unnecessary, as the visuals really do tell the story quite easily. Regardless, the process did establish the personalities quite well.
Anyway, the film quickly moves from characters to story in the first five minutes, when two important wealthy folks are sent to their death by a very confused, yet vicious pterodactyl that has suddenly hatched after 136 million years. As the viewer, you’re just as confused as the bird, as the film then jumps to our main character Adèle Blanc-Sec, who is trying to retrieve a doctor from a mummy’s tomb — by the way, the doctor is also a mummy. Once retrieved, which includes a daring escape from a particularly hideous villain, Adèle makes her way back home to France to discover a bird has terrorized her city.
The two storylines (mummy/pterodactyl) cross paths, when they both involve her friend Marie-Joseph Espérandieu. Espérandieu has the power to speak to the locked souls inside of supposedly dead ‘things’, which is how the pterodactyl was revived (Espérandieu was practicing on the bird in preparation for bringing Adèle’s mummy back to life). Because of his involvement with the reviving the bird, who has killed several people, Espérandieu is arrested and sentenced to death. Adèle must find a way to tame the loose bird, rescue her friend Espérandieu and still save her sister from death (didn’t I mention that? No? Well, there’s the mummy storyline) by resurrecting the mummy through Espérandieu’s mysterious power.
As an adult, this looks and feels like two stories intertwined and forced to fit together. As an adult, I would be right because that’s exactly what was done by writer/director Luc Besson, who had pulled original stories written by Jacques Tardi and created one film. With that said, it has taken forever for a live-action film to be made with this character, and Luc Besson impressed Tardi enough with his script and vision to get this done. So, without the story in place, the film would not have been made. Is it perfect? No, not by typical standards. There are movies like Tin-Tin that present a better organized story arc than what you get with The Extraordinary Adventures of Adèle Blanc-Sec.
Now, turn off the adult on the outside and see this movie from a kid’s point of view.
As a kid, what you get with this movie is a fun adventure starring an extremely strong female character with Adèle Blanc-Sec (played by Louise Bourgoin). They could not have selected a better actress for the role, as Bourgoin presents a very tough, intelligent personality with her Adèle Blanc-Sec. In a sense, she was the 1912 version of Indiana Jones, and there wasn’t a moment in the film where it seemed like she didn’t have control of the situation. She was well-written and she moved the story/movie forward and kept it interesting. Not only this, but she’s a great role model for girls and had my daughters hooked the entire film.
Kids will absolutely be glued to this film.
With that said, this film has Luc Besson’s signature written all over it, which makes it fun to watch as an adult. Intense scenes, scary moments and plenty of subtle humor that will make everyone in the room laugh. Plus, the visual creativity that he brings to the table is just as good as what you’ll find in his previous films (You’ll see a lot of The Fifth Element in this one — especially the Egypt scenes). His style makes up for the forced stories.
At the end of the day, this film is fun. It’s a bit magical, a bit mystery and stupid fun.
Now, for the added value, the special features are very interesting (although, if you’re not a fan of subtitles then you may not like them). Here’s what you get:
– The Making of The Extraordinary Adventures of Adèle Blanc-Sec
– Deleted Scenes
– Music Featurette
The Making of The Extraordinary Adventures of Adèle Blanc-Sec is a wonderful featurette that takes you through what it took to get this movie started, how Bourgoin was cast and some other fun details about the production. It’s very solid and gives some great insight to the film and its vision. As for the other things, they’re good additions, but not quite the quality of the ‘making of’ featurette.
