... and now I have the Daltons going "silly me/silly you" in my head now!
They would be good though...
I remember being disappointed by the first Asterix movie too- part of this may have been my expectations of it at the time, but looking back its also because it suffers from similar problems to the recent Uderzo-only written stories. (I should quickly say how I do admire the man for his draftsmanship, and for carrying on after the death of Goscinny regardless.) I didn't like the fantasy elements, and some of the characterizations felt a bit off. Bengini was great though- hamming it up big style as the villain.
MrCutts:
I remember seeing the first Asterix film and I'm sure the centurion or main Roman sitting on his horse outside the village said s**t. I thought hang on this is kids film showing on a Saturday afternoon!
That bit with the spiders was pushing it a bit too!
I know Terry Jones did the English version of the screenplay- and I can't help wondering whether those were his own jokes rather than a translation of the original.
Mission Cleopatra however was a lovely surprise- The humour, characterization, and the tone were faithful to both the book and the cartoon. Also its interesting that the subtitled version is longer- and funnier- than the English dub on the same DVD.
Of what I saw of Olympic Games (I was watching on a Spanish-language movie channel when I was on holiday- which was how I first saw Mission Cleopatra a year or so previously) it looked like Asterix & Obelix were just cameos in their own movie- most of the time the focus was on Brutus.
There is a version of Asterix in Britain in the works- I hope they do it justice, as i have such fond memories of the original film.