Funny, wacky, silly adventure comedy, it falls a bit flat during the long parallel montage of Adèle's failed attempts to take Prof. Espérandieu out of jail, while Caponi and Saint-Hubert disguised as lambs wait to catch the pterodactyl. This is clean entertainment, based on a French comic, with robberty of national treasures in foreign lands, deaths, female abuse and enough violence, to keep it rooted to reality, but thankfully it is far from the ideologically offensive and brutish world of Indiana Jones and his bunch. Louise Bourgoin is a beautiful Adèle, Nercessian's performance is a pleasure to watch, Giraud is a charming suitor, Lellouch is a quirky relative of Inspector Clouseau, and Amalric, the perfect villain. Delighfully French main course for a Sunday matinee.

I am a Tardi fan. The comics by his hand are unique. I read the books in Dutch. The translator also changed the names of the characters from French to Dutch. In order to help the reader to understand the meaning. F.i. Adele Blanc-Sec is changed to Isabelle Avondrood. No problem. I still reread them. But now the movie. It is well made and entertaining. That one expect from Luc Besson. But there are some flaws, that the reader notices at once. Like another critic already wrote: the story is a mix of two of the novels and some Egyptian story lines. The actress playing Adele is kind of Rachel Weisz in the Mummy or one of Indiana Jones' sidekicks. That is a pity. Because the real Adele is sarcastic, a little bohemian and not really pretty. She dresses almost shabby. The storyline in the books show a France that is not so nice as the movie makes us believe. The policemen are incompetent, have no trouble beating up prisoners, lunatic scientists roam the street or hang out in the catacombs under the city. Homicidal maniacs want Adele dead, the Great War is not depicted as a heroic event, but one that left an nation with numerous deaths and invalids. That is the atmosphere in the books. And that is something I really miss in the movie. But, like I said already: it is good entertainment.

In 1911, in Paris, the bold journalist Adèle Blanc-Sec (Louise Bourgoin) is assigned by her editor to travel to Peru to write about the Incas, but she goes to Egypt instead to seek out the mummy of a doctor of Ramses II to bring him to Paris. Adèle has an agreement with Professor Marie-Joseph Espérandieu (Jacky Nercessian) that has the ability of bringing the dead back to life to resurrect the doctor to heel her twin sister Agathe Blanc-Sec (Laure de Clermont),who has been catatonic and paraplegic for five years due to an accident caused by Adèle. However, Professor Espérandieu is arrested in prison and sentenced to death after bringing to life a pterodactyl from an ancient egg in Louvre that caused the death of three persons. Now the last hope of Agathe is that Adèle saves Professor Espérandieu from the guillotine.

"Les Aventures Extraordinaires d'Adèle Blanc-Sec" is a highly entertaining and funny adventure by Luc Besson. Last week, I was zapping the television and I saw the last part of the adventure of Adèle Blanc- Sec. Today I have just watched this movie on DVD with my family and we really enjoyed the story. The weird and bizarre characters slightly recall the surrealism of Marc Caro and Jean-Pierre Jeunet in "Delicatessen and "La Cité des Enfants Perdus". My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "As Múmias do Faraó"("The Mummies of the Pharaoh")