Despite the rather misleading packaging that presents it as a Leone style spaghetti-western with The Artist star Jean Dujardin playing a grim Man-With-No-Name type, Lucky Luke is in fact based on one of France’s most popular and enduring comic books and is essentially a live-action cartoon. Luke, with his superhuman gun-slinging abilities and talking horse, has been around in print since the 40s and his most famous stories were written by Rene Goscinny, the co-creator of Asterix. Indeed, the two characters are not dissimilar in that they’re both plucky, good-natured underdogs who are always coolly outsmarting their enemies and the stories share a sense of humour with their excessive puns, visual gags and sly references to the modern world.
So for any viewers who are uninitiated with the source material it may be a bit of a letdown to realise this is more Tom and Jerry than Butch and Sundance probably a bit like going into Asterix & Obelix: Mission Cleopatra expecting to see a Gladiator-style epic. But if you accept it for the visually flamboyant, larger-than-life caper that it actually is, and you’re not adverse to a bit of juvenile silliness, then you’re probably going to have a good time.
For the first few minutes Lucky Luke keeps its cards close to its chest with a straight-faced prologue in which a young John Luke sees his parents murdered by the evil Cheaters Gang and vows both to avenge them and never to kill anyone. It’s only when we’re introduced to the grown up Luke in the shape of the insanely charismatic Dujardin and realise that he is now literally faster than his own shadow that the film’s true colours become apparent.
Luke is assigned by the President (Andre Oumansky) to return to his birthplace, Daisy Town, and attempt to bring his own brand of non-lethal law and order to what has become the most dangerous place in the West. Once there he comes up against murderous outlaws led by Pat Poker (Daniel Prevost), a slippery customer who’s almost as supernaturally talented with a gun as Luke himself. Eventually Luke is forced to team up with his old partner Calamity Jane (Sylvie Testud), the Shakespeare obsessed Jesse James (Melvil Poupaud) and Billy the Kid a snivelling little brat who’s fond of lollipops and prone to hysterical tantrums, a gag made all the funnier by the fact he’s played by Michael Youn who is clearly in his late 30s.
At a 140 minutes, Lucky Luke is a little long to sustain the madcap pace, and now and then the flimsy plot is sidetracked and the film starts to feel like a sketch comedy show in which some of the jokes fall flat. But Dujardin’s earnestly goofy performance, Pierre Queffelean’s outlandish set design and James Huth’s Tex Avery meets Sergio Leone style direction add up to a satisfying piece of family entertainment. At least it would be family entertainment if it didn’t have a 15′ certificate which seems like an odd decision considering it only contains a bit of cartoonish violence and a few risqué jokes which would probably go over the heads of any kids watching anyway.
Overall Verdict: Occasionally hilarious, visually outstanding and with a winning central performance from Jean Dujardin, Lucky Luke is on to a winner.
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Reviewer: Adam Pidgeon