Some of the musical selections were a bit cheesy given the time period of the film's setting, but that is what you get for trying to appeal to the younger kids I guess.Įxtras include some production features, storyboards and a video for the Celine Dion song from the film. Low bass extension can be impressive at times and the overall sense of soundstage is convincing. Dynamic range is pretty good and like most animated feature films a lot of care has gone into the sound design.
Voices trail the animation by nearly a full second which can be quite annoying. Unfortunately both soundtracks have dubbing issues and there are some serious lip-synch issues that detract from the experience. The English dub features some good voice work from bigger name actors like Paul Giamatti, Sean Astin and Brad Garrett. The soundtrack is featured in both French DTS-HD High Resolution 5.1 and English DTS-HD High Resolution 5.1. While I wouldn't say it is the best animated feature in HD, it does look quite good.
Colors are all vibrant without being cartoony and contrast is excellent. Backgrounds and main objects are gorgeous though and the mix of 3D animation really works well here. All of the characters are drawn in traditional cell form and the quality of their dimension wavers a bit from scene to scene. But like a lot of the earlier animated features you see some persistent banding throughout, especially in skyscapes. Like most animation this film looks really good in HD. The film does have its funny moments, but the story moves at a pretty slow pace and the forced inclusion of "hip" culture didn't work well for it overall. The animation style looked good and I was impressed with the mix of 3D and cell animation, but the story was geared too much to the younger crowd and my wife and I just couldn't get into it. Unfortunately this one didn't play out real well. The film was getting reasonably good word of mouth and the character looked vaguely familiar from my younger days. When I saw an import HD DVD was available for Asterix and the Vikings I went ahead and picked it up. It's pleasant to watch ,but it lacks the puns,the anachronisms,the word games ,in a nutshell,it lacks the magic the albums would bring when we used to read them in the sixties (the best Asterix albums were made in the sixties and early seventies) But the biggest mistake is the music:"eye of the tiger' is bad taste in that context the rest of the score is fake disco/funk and the last song and its "moral" so unbearable it's an insult to Goscinny's extraordinary sense of humor!Sorry but Elton John did much better with his "lion king" music.I'm always on the lookout for new animated fare, regardless of what country it is from. Half of the flick takes place in the Vikings'land.The part of the bard ,Assurancetourix,which was prominent in the album, is reduced to the bare minimum,although it's finally he who.
Based on Goscinny/Uderzo's "Astérix et les Normands" published in 1967, this movie roughly follows the plot of the cartoon book,but it introduces new characters :Grossebaf's daughter,Abba (a good innovation) ,a wicked viking and his muscle man half-wit offspring,and Goudurix's father.Another significant difference is that the album was called "Astérix ET (=and) Les Normands" and the heroes did not leave their village.