Top Ten Fallen Filmmakers

     It’s a well-known fact that most filmmakers lose their talent over time.  There are few exceptions (Wes Anderson is a rare example of a director who seems to have improved since he started making movies), but most of the directors who made the classics of my childhood era have lost their touch.    

     A lot of this may be because people tend to be more creative when they’re young.  They aren’t as much a part of the establishment.  As they grow older they also become more family oriented and tend to intentionally make things more kid-friendly, thus losing their edge.  Another common trend is that these filmmakers tend to gravitate more toward CGI, since it saves them the trouble the went through in the old days, even though it’s harder to have a personal style when dozens of people are making the effects for your movie on computers with minimal involvement from you.  CGI is a good technology, but it tends to make movies look more uniform in appearance.  Unfortunately, many directors who were known for their visual style have succumbed to the temptation to use this effect.

      Here is my list of directors I loved from their heyday who don’t quite cut it anymore.  I’m not sure about Christopher Nolan yet, even though I didn’t particularly care for Dark Knight Rises or Interstellar.  At least his visual style is just as good as ever, which is more than I can say for most of the following.

Michael Mann is known for his distinctive visual style and his knack for exciting, realistic gunfights.  He made the first Hannibal Lecter movie with Manhunter (1986), a good film that could have used more scenes from the book.  He also produced Miami Vice (1984-9)  He then made the excellent Last of the Mohicans (1992) and Heat (1995), the latter being my favorite modern crime drama.  Collateral (2004) was also good.

     Miami Vice (2006), despite boasting his all his stylistic strengths, was a remarkably boring movie.  Mann always tended to make movies with slow pacing, which isn’t a problem when you have good material.  I couldn’t even make it through Public Enemies (2009).  He also produced the mediocre Hancock (2008).  Blackhat (2015)was a decent movie that at least deserved to make its money back, but it displayed none of his visual style.  Probably an ambiguous entry on this list, which is why he’s so low here. 

Known for his sense of humor and dark, gothic style, Burton peaked during the late 80’s and early 90’s with Beetlejuice (1988), Batman (1989) and Edward Scissorhands (1990).  I have my issues with Batman Returns (1992), but it was a great example of his style and creativity.  So was The Nightmare before Christmas (1993), which he produced.

      He continued to make good movies throughout the 90’s and early 00’s with Ed Wood (1994), Mars Attacks! (1996), the visually brilliant Sleepy Hollow (1999), Big Fish (2003) and Corpse Bride (2005).  Unfortunately he also made Planet of the Apes (2001), which was a Burton film in name only.  While Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005) was good, it wasn’t as good as the 1971 classic and it started the trend of Burton’s making unnecessary remakes for large studios. 

      Like many visually distinctive directors, he fell to the temptation of using generic CGI as a crutch, which was particularly evident in the terrible Alice in Wonderland (2010) and the middling Frankenweenie remake (2012).  A former arteur, he has been reduced to making remakes for Disney like the upcoming one of Dumbo and blandly competent biopics like Big Eyes (2014).  He’s low on this list due to the gradual nature of his decline and the small number of truly awful recent movies, but it’s clear that he is not nearly as creative as he used to be.   

Possibly my all-time favorite animator.  His effective mix of cartoonish style and dark atmosphere gave my generation truly suspenseful animated films and influenced my own tastes and art style.  The late 70’s and 80’s were his heyday with classics like Banjo the Woodpile Cat (1979), Secret of NIMH (1982), and The Land Before Time (1988).  An American Tail (1985) and All Dogs go to Heaven (1989) were also good examples of his style, but contained way too many annoying scenes for my tastes.  As a rule, I think Bluth should avoid making musicals.

      Then the 90’s ruined everything for him and his fans.  He made the unbelievably terrible Rock-a-Doodle (1991), which somehow combined the flaws of a cluelessly stubborn artist with those of executive meddling.  There was nowhere to go from that movie but up, which wasn’t saying much.  In 1994 he made the awful Thumbelina and the insufferable Troll in Central Park, which is widely regarded as his worst movie by those who have not seen Rock-a-Doodle.  He then made the mediocre Pebble and the Penguin in 1996.  Possibly even worse than all those, he sold out by making the unoriginal and trendy Anastasia (1997), which at least had some good music.  The animator who left Disney because he felt they were making the same movie over and over just made the same movie Disney was making over and over at the time.  Naturally, the movie did pretty well with critics.  This was followed by the unimpressive Bartok the Magnificent (1999), which was the only sequel to one of his movies he was involved with.

     Few directors had made such a constant slew of such bad movies, but in an interesting twist his final film, Titan AE (2000), was actually pretty good.  I’m in the minority, though.  It seems to be despised by Bluth fans for reasons I don’t understand.  My money says it’s because it didn’t come out when they were five.  The movie flopped, which is too bad because Bluth could have gone on to do good things.  Way to show support, “fans.”

A surprise hit with The Sixth Sense (1999), he quickly became known as a one-trick pony despite also making the excellent Unbreakable (2000).  Signs (2002) had many of his strengths and was an entertaining movie, but its contrived and nonsensical plot was a harbinger of doom.  The Village (2004) was an okay movie that doesn’t deserve all the hate it gets, but Night’s true fall came with the incredibly conceited Lady in the Water (2006), a good premise ruined by out-of-control egomania.  He continued to make impressively pathetic movies that were dependent on cheap gimmicks and twists like The Happening (2008).

     At this point, I still believed he could direct a good movie as long as someone else gave him good material to work with, but that hope was dashed by The Last Airbender (2010).  I’ve heard nothing good about After Earth (2013).  He makes one wonder how he’s still allowed to make movies.

An interesting entry on this list, since Spielberg is one of the few directors from my childhood years who still seems to be able to make good films.  Using his influence as a filmmaker for good, he produced creative and solid movies like Gremlins (1984), the Back to the Future trilogy (1985,1989,1990), Innerspace (1987), The Land Before Time (1988), Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988), Balto (1995) and Men in Black (1997).  He also produced many of the nostalgic cartoons from my childhood such as Tiny Toons (1990-5), Animaniacs (1993-8), Freakazoid! (1995-7) and Pinky and the Brain (1995-8).  After the success of Saving Private Ryan, he produced the excellent TV Series Band of Brothers (2001).

      The next year he produced the unnecessary and terrible Men in Black II.  And worse still, he produced the atrocious “Transformers” (2007).  Once a great eye for talent, something possessed him into thinking that Michael Bay was a worthwhile director, and talked him into adapting a franchise he had no interest in.  He continued to be an accomplice with the movie’s subsequent sequels.  Spielberg’s career as a producer had once celebrated imagination, but he went to producing apathetic blockbusters with no respect for imagination or heart. 

One of my favorite visual directors, Scott’s style was apparent in this debut film The Duellists (1977).  In the following years he made his best movies: Alien (1979) and Blade Runner (1982). Legend (1985) was a dull movie, but it was one of his best looking ones.  Black Rain (1989) was also very much a style over substance movie.  Still, his visual style was amazing and revolutionary.  So much so that most movies seem to rip it off nowadays, although in a bland CGI/color filter kind of way that looks more generic than striking.  I don’t think I’ve seen any movie he made during the 90’s but he hit a brief peak afterward with Gladiator (2000) and Black Hawk Down (2001), his last truly great movie. 

   After this his skills became more ambiguous.  He started making movies that ranged from middling to decent.  Hannibal (2001) was okay and doesn’t deserve the scorn it seems to get.  Kingdom of Heaven (2005) was a confused follow-up to Gladiator, and American Gangster (2007) was decent.  Body of Lies (2008) was middle of the road.  This period seemed to demonstrate that, outside Blade Runner, Scott was not too skilled at ambiguous and complex movies.

      The fall was confirmed with the awful Robin Hood (2010).  A dull, poorly cast film that completely missed the point of this time-honored legend.  After that came the fatuous Prometheus (2012), which besmirched the memory of one of his true classics.  Also, Scott’s visual style has suffered.  Succumbing to the temptation of CGI, his movies now look like everything else (although for all its flaws, Prometheus was a very good-looking film). 

During the 70’s, Coppola made some true classics, the most prominent of them being The Godfather (1972).  In 1974 he had a particularly good year with Godfather Pt. II and The Conversation.  Not every director gets nominated for two movies in the same year with one winning (I may be in the minority of those who prefer the criminally overlooked Conversation).  Apocalypse Now (1979) is also a classic. 

     I don’t have anything to say about what he was doing in the 80’s, but he seemed to have lost his touch by the 90’s.  The Godfather Pt. III (1990) was a disappointment, Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992) would have been better had it been more faithful to the source material, and I don’t know what he was thinking with Jack (1996).  From Godfather to a cloying family film. 

With The Evil Dead (1981), Raimi made a creative horror movie that revitalized the genre.  With Evil Dead II (1987) he established himself as a master of horror camp and one of the few directors who can pull off cartoon slapstick in live-action.  He followed that up with Darkman (1990), a clever and dark twist on the superhero genre.  His best movie was Evil Dead III: The Army of Darkness (1992), a perfect example of everything great about his style and sense of humor.  The Quick and the Dead (1995) was flawed but took advantage of his camp style in an appropriate genre.

      Discouraged by the failure of that movie, he moved on to more mainstream movies with some success.  A Simple Plan (1998) was a good Oscar-bait movie that seemed like a way to prove that he could make a serious movie.  He went full Summer Blockbuster with Spider-Man (2002), a good movie which benefited from his style but suffered from terrible CGI.  Spider-Man 2 (2004) was a better film but it was his last decent movie.  Perhaps during this year Quentin Tarantino used a voodoo curse to steal his powers, which is why Tarantino has been displaying properties of Raimi’s style since Kill Bill and Raimi hasn’t made a decent movie afterwards.

     Raimi fell from grace with the awful Spider-Man 3 (2007).  He tried to get back to his roots and the result was the absolutely hideous Drag Me to Hell (2009), which managed to reflect poorly on him as a person as well as a filmmaker.  He then made the generic and bland Oz the Great and Powerful (2013).  His closest thing to a success was his producing a competent but humorless and uncalled-for Evil Dead remake (2013). 

      

Once one of the greatest sci-fi action directors, Cameron is now one of the most boring  and unoriginal filmmakers out there.  He showed true innovation with movies like Terminator (1984), Aliens (1986) and Terminator 2 (1991), but Titanic (1997) and Avatar (2009) were the ones that got him Oscar nominations.  That’s why I hate the Academy Awards.  During  a short transition period, he made True Lies (1994), an unimpressive action comedy that at least boasted a good chase scene and some impressive CGI for the early 90’s.  He co-wrote Kathryn Bigelow’s Strange Days (1995), which indicated an early loss of his grasp of pacing: I got through forty minutes of it without even getting to the plot’s inciting action.

      Part of this is, like with many of these directors, Cameron became increasingly enamored with the CGI technology he helped pioneer.  His earlier movies had a visceral quality thanks to the in-camera effects and R-Rated violence.  Like many who were filmmakers during the dawn of CGI, he saw it as a shortcut, without realizing or caring that it is best used in moderation.  Since then his films have become more restrained in their violence and artificial in their appearance.  He allowed a technology he created control him.

     His movies also used to feature unforgettable characters like Ripley and the Terminator as well as well-paced plots.  Now his movies are slowly-paced without satisfying payoffs, and his characters and situations are ripped off from Disney movies, except without the things that make Disney movies enjoyable. 

I know this is a bit of a dead horse, but I had to put this at number one.  Few movies have influenced me to the extent that the Star Wars has.  Perhaps that’s why critiquing him never gets old: his movies meant so much to so many of us.  Lucas was once a great filmmaker when he made THX 1138 (1971), American Graffiti (1973), and The Star Wars Trilogy (1977, 1980, 1983).  He also wrote Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984).  If not for Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), one could fairly identify his downfall as 1986 when he produced Howard the Duck.

     While most fallen filmmakers have simply stopped making good films, Lucas has been determined to destroy the material he made that was good.  In 1997 he drew first blood in a war against his fans and everything that once made him a great filmmaker with the Star Wars Special Edition.  While the changes were unnecessary and annoying, they did not ruin the otherwise great trilogy, so people were optimistic about Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace (1999) until they saw it.  The characterization and canon of the Star Wars universe was further defiled in Attack of the Clones (2002).  The lack of writing skill was still apparent in the more entertaining Revenge of the Sith (2005).  Finally, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008) not only robbed Indy of his dignity, but also dropped the ball on showing him killing some filthy commies, which was something I always wanted to see.

      Many have compared Lucas’ fall from grace to the birth of Darth Vader, and the parallels are pretty compelling.  It’s even more tragic when you watch his warnings against succumbing to rampant consumerism in THX 1138.  When fighting against film coloration he said in 1988, “People who alter or destroy works of art and our cultural heritage for profit or as an exercise of power are barbarians.”   Lucas’ corruption is even sadder when it seems that he was well aware of the ability to be corrupted early on. 

The Gospel of Judah

The Lion of Judah

2011

D: Deryck Broom, Roger Hawkins

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Pros: Potentially Good Premise, Some Good Ideas and Character Arcs, One Funny Moment

Cons: Animation and Character Designs, Obnoxious Humor, Inconsistent Tone

       Today is Good Friday.  A solemn day when we commemorate Christ’s sacrifice to save us all from sin and death.  God lowered himself to our level and consented to excruciating torment on the cross because of His love for us.  So, being the good Catholic boy I am, I’m naturally taking the opportunity to review The Lion of Judah.  And to think a year ago I took the time to draw this.

       The movie begins in Jesus’ time in a barn which serves as the home for goofy pig named Horace (Omar Benson Miller), a similarly goofy rooster named Drake (Alphonso McCauley), a skittish horse named Monty (Anupam Kher), a sassy and matronly cow named Esmay (Sandi Patty) and a rat named Slink (Ernest Borgnine).  The scene mostly consists of aimless slapstick and humor.  I haven’t seen the movie in a while, but I think this is where the movie gets its obligatory fart joke out of the way.  This seems to be mandatory in all 3D anthropomorphic animated movies.  The plot begins when a crate carrying a lamb named Judah (Georgina Cordova) ends up delivered to the barn.  Judah calls himself “The Lion of Judah” and is convinced that he is destined to save the other animals from ritualistic sacrifice.  This was most likely a comforting lie told to him by his mother, as he is being shipped to Jerusalem to be sacrificed himself.  After some more nonsense, he is packed back into his crate, but Drake is put in with him by accident.  The other animals decide to make the trip to rescue them.

       At this point I would like to complain about the movie’s animation.  I’ve pointed this out before, but I think one of the reasons why characters in these cheap 3D animated movies look so off-putting is that no one thinks to adapt conceptual artwork that looked good on paper to a three dimensional medium.  As if to drive the point home, Lion of Judah’s credits feature some decent drawings of the characters.  It’s almost like it’s teasing us with the prospect that this movie would actually look presentable if it was traditionally animated.  Another problem is that they didn’t quite know how to design the animals.  They have an awkward mix of animal and human features, but the humans in the movie look okay.  The most grotesque example of all this is Horace.  One might notice that he has a creepy grin stretched across an oddly flat, wide face, and inside that grin is set of human jaws to narrow to fill the mouth.  I noticed something similar with Vlad Chocool in Foodfight!     

       The characters pick up a reluctant donkey named Jack (Scott Eastwood).  Jack is a cynical character who has been used by the humans and wants nothing to do with this trek.  Eventually he meets Jesus (Bruce Marchiano) and becomes the ass that He rides during Palm Sunday.  Touched by Christ’s love, he decides to follow Him in the end.  Predictable as it is, this is one of the more complete and well-executed story arcs in the movie.  It also helps that Jack’s is one of the more well-rendered designs in the movie.

       When they finally arrive in Jerusalem, Judah unsuccessfully attempts to free the animals.  A clever idea thrown in here is the presence of two pious doves who are willingly going to their sacrifice and are not interested in liberation.  We see another admittedly clever idea with a group of ravens led by Boss (Michael Madsen).  Labeled as “unclean” by society, they search for rags to clean themselves because they’ve misinterpreted a prophecy of some kind.  At one point Monty finds himself in an alley claimed by the ravens, and the result is a scene that is actually genuinely funny.  It’s the only funny moment in the movie.  Unfortunately, these birds all have stereotypical Italian gangster accents. 

      In classic Ben-Hur fashion, the animals have some momentary encounters with Jesus.  For example, a character is loosed from a cage when He harangues the money lenders.  In a particularly annoying scene, Drake is acting out a lame comic sequence that plays out like a typical Mission Impossible spoof.  This culminates in his running into a crowd screaming like an idiot…right when Peter (David Magidoff) has denied Jesus the third time.  Casting Drake as the Biblical cock might have been a clever idea, but the awkward use of humor makes the scene annoying and borderline offensive.   Eventually, the protagonists gather to witness the Crucifixion, and they are clearly heartbroken by the sight.  No one seems to question the group of farm animals that have positioned themselves front and center.  Fortunately, they are cheered up by the Resurrection and return home while Jack leaves them to follow Christ.  Judah is reunited with his mother, which is heartwarming if you ignore that their owner, unlikely to convert anytime soon, will probably just shrug and send him to Jerusalem again.  Or just eat him. 

      The idea of an anthropomorphic film about the Passion makes some sort of sense when you consider that Christ’s sacrifice rendered animal sacrifice unnecessary.  However, this ignores the fact that Christianity also did away with many food taboos.

This is bad news for Horace in particular.

Still, this movie’s premise had a lot of potential, and the film mostly suffers from poor execution.  The animation is grotesque, and the Nickelodeon-style humor is annoying and inappropriate.  When combined with the serious story elements, it causes problems with inconsistent tone.  It’s a common mistake with these movies to assume that children will be bored unless you throw goofy humor at them at an almost constant rate.  Children may be naïve in many ways, but they generally have a basic understanding of good narrative and have a better ability to discern a good movie from a bad one than people give them credit for.  They actually do appreciate earnestness in fiction.    I would have liked to see this story attempted by Don Bluth during the 80’s.  Still, their hearts were in the right place, and the movie does have the occasional moment of decent symbolism.  For what it’s worth, that makes Lion of Judah a better Biblical movie than Noah.

Gaming Gauls

 

Asterix and the Great Rescue

1993

Sega Genesis

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Pros: Music, Graphics, Sound Effects, Some Clever Map Designs, Simple Passwords

Cons: Flawed Gameplay Physics, Inconsistent Difficulty, Stringent Time Limits

      Although it doesn’t have much of a mainstream following in America, I was pretty familiar with Asterix the Gaul growing up.  This was probably because my mom was a Classics teacher, and Asterix was known for having been translated well into many languages, including Latin.  Naturally, she decided to get this game for me and my brothers.  It has some nostalgic value for me, but it’s generally seen as a needlessly difficult game in many of the wrong ways.

      The game’s story involves the kidnapping of the Gaulish druid Getafix by the Romans.  He makes a potion that can temporarily grant people super strength.  This is the reason why his village is still not conquered, and it also makes one wonder why he has not taught this potion to anyone else.  The franchise’s hero, Asterix, is tasked with rescuing Getafix with the help of his fat, dim-witted sidekick Obelix.  Fortunately for these two, the Romans were somehow dumb enough to allow Getafix to leave potions along their circuitous path back to Rome which they can use to keep their strength up.  And thus Asterix and Obelix forge of path of destruction through Western Europe to rescue their friend.

You got lucky, Spain.

      The game is divided into six worlds which are made up of multiple levels and one boss at the end.  At the beginning of each level, the player can choose between Asterix and Obelix.  While Obelix, with his nonchalant pacing, overheaded throwing of items and celebratory butt-bouncing, is more amusing to watch than Asterix, there is usually no practical reason to pick him.  Asterix seems far more balanced and doesn’t need to duck to get into some areas.  I also think Obelix may have even worse hit detection than Asterix, but that’s something to get to later.  There are many enemies in the game, but the most common ones are thin legionaries (who take one hit), fat legionaries (who take two) and centurions (who take three).  Other enemies can be pretty random and nonsensical, and the game has been criticized for absurd and inconsistent settings.  Hazards also include squirrels, small birds and plants with some guy/monkey behind them that goes apeshit when you pass them, showering you with harmful sunflower seeds.  However, since I believe such nonsense is endearing in platform games, I don’t really count that as a flaw.  I admit that I’m not the best gamer and I haven’t fully beaten every part of this game.

      Vital to beating many levels are a few items that you pick up.  The three main items are thrown bombs, clouds which act as temporary platforms and temporary levitation.  They are used on boards that require them for passage and there’s often just enough to get through.  This has invited comparisons to puzzle games by people who have a very liberal definition of what constitutes a puzzle game (My favorite puzzle game is GoldenEye).  Other items include various point items, a one-up heart, an invincibility sickle and a turbo invincibility bomb.       

      One of the first things to notice about the game is that the graphics are quite appealing.  While the bold, black outlines of the cartoon characters might look too pixellated, the backgrounds are colorful and detailed.  The scenery is creative and diverse, and the maps are well-designed.  One exception would be a couple underwater stages, which feature a grotesque and impairing net of blue pixels as well as intentionally sluggish game physics.  As with most Genesis games, animation is fluid, but I got some lag when confronting multiple enemies.  I’m not sure if that’s the fault of my RetroN 3 or not.

      I love the sound effects, which fit the cartoonish look of the source material.  Punching enemies results in rich sounds that are very satisfying to listen to.  Some items make a nice jingle when you pick them up.  There’s also something therapeutic about listening to the coin collecting sound effect in quick succession.  Come to think of it, for all the advances in gaming technology, I tend to prefer the crisp sound effects of older games to that of newer ones.  Case in point: the satisfying cracks and bangs of the original Super Smash Bros. being replaced by the gentle thumping in Melee.     

      The best part of the game is its soundtrack.  The tunes are memorable, and the songs go on for a substantial length with satisfying variety before they loop.  While the 16-Bit sound effects can often sound odd, it’s clear that effort was put in to simulate various sound effects and instrumentation.  Most of the worlds have a song that fits the setting well.  The first world, GaulishVillage, has a cheerful song that wouldn’t sound out of place in a Mario game.  The Roman Encampment’s theme is a badass military march.  The Forest has a distinctive and atmospheric theme.  Germany is set to a neat and vaguely industrial tune, and the Roman Galley is straight-up metal.  After imagining what song would represent the might of Rome, it was a bit disappointing to hear this.  Music should represent the feelings associated with certain settings or situations, and I’ve never heard a song that so perfectly captures the feeling of constipation as this one.  Still, it develops into a good song, and I’m sure that strange sound effect was the fault of the system’s limitations.  The pause music is pretty decent, too.  Overall, the score is above average by industry standards, and composer Nathan McCree deserves credit for his work on the music and sound effects for this game.

     Less endearing are the game physics.  While the controls are straightforward enough, Asterix and Obelix (who from this point will simply be referred as Asterix, politically incorrect as it may be) move disappointingly slow and their jumps are a bit awkward and short.  The inability to run faster without powerups is also an annoyance.  Most noticeable to many gamers is the terrible hit detection.  Asterix has terrible reach with his attacks, and the enemies can often harm him before he can land a blow.  Often the best thing to do is to just stand there punching as fast as you can while a Legionary walks up to you, since walking up to one risks taking damage.  A game I would contrast Asterix with is Angry Video Game Nerd Adventures, which features great controls generous hit detection but is hard because of clever and challenging board design.  Many hazards have hitboxes that are larger than their sprites, resulting in Asterix’s taking damage from things he clearly did not touch.  Damage is also very inconsistent.  Asterix is harmed by seemingly benign animals, but doesn’t mind being right next to explosives that he himself has thrown.  One of the most frustrating elements of the game is identical platforms that can move, drop or do nothing.  They can only be overcome by blind luck or trial and error.  The worst part of this is that when a platform drops Asterix loses his footing and cannot jump from it, demanding that the player jump the instant before fall.  Moving platforms are even worse because they often drop at the end of their path without warning at a spot that’s hard to gauge even with trial and error.  This may be physically realistic, but it violates an unwritten rule of gaming physics.  It’s not very justifiable to turn around and throw real-world physics into a fever dream of exploding women,bodiless Germans, sneezing owls, pensive rabbits, sausage mazes and small animals.  There are also multiple Leaps of Faith, as well.  This game is, for lack of a better term, unfair.

       Making the game remarkably more difficult is the time limit for each level, which is usually around three minutes regardless of the stage’s length or difficulty.  It can turn otherwise simple stages into desperate races against time.  However, because of the other difficulties of the game, this can result in death.  You have to find that perfect balance of speed and caution to make it through many stages.  What’s worse is that there are many levels that require time for exploration, and the only way to beat them is through extensive trial and error.  Levels do not have checkpoints, which doesn’t help.  The game gives you three lives in three continues, which you can go through pretty fast.  When that happens, you're treated to a Game Over jingle that makes the laughing dog from Duck Hunt seem respectful in comparison.  Playing this on an emulator makes save state abuse very tempting.  A real boon is that once you beat a world, you will be given a 6-letter password to access the next one.  These passwords are easy to remember and can be entered any time you play the game.  Getting through the stages in these worlds is a different story.

      Another major problem with the game is its inconsistent difficulty.  A basic unwritten rule of video games is that they should start out easy and get progressively harder as you get through them.  Asterix and the Great Rescue, however, is all over the place.  Most of the stages are easy enough, but many worlds will have at least one disproportionately difficult level.  The relative difficulty of each world is completely random, and the last one is actually the easiest.       

      The first world is the Gaulish Village.  It is overrun with Roman soldiers, and Asterix must secure it.  The first stage is fairly straightforward and is an accurate depiction of the village as a bunch of simple, thatched huts.  However, we soon see immense structures that rival what the Romans could build, especially The Purple Palace of Pain (or Pink Palace depending on how your TV is adjusted).  This is one of the most infamous examples of the time limitation in the game.  The level is complex, indirect and full of hazards, and the locations of the keys and passages are not readily apparent.  Despite this, you’re expected to beat the board in 3 minutes.  How my brothers eventually figured it out is beyond me, but it took a while.  When I revisited the game, I thankfully remembered the layout, but it took a few deaths to get through it.  Afterwards, there are a few more levels including one featuring a giant sculpture of a man’slower and upper jaw in two pieces apparently made by two artists who weren’t communicating with each other that shoots boogers at you.  Finally, you get to the boss: the village bard Cacofonix.  Apparently, Cacofonix is such a bad musician that his musical notes have assumed physical form and hurt anyone they hit.  Of course, this is only a problem if you get near his treehouse as Asterix and one random guy running past with a shield over his head insist on doing.  In order to defeat him, you must jump on the guy’s shield at the right moment and press C to throw fish at him until he retreats back into his house, because Asterix can punch a Roman soldier into the stratosphere but he can’t throw a fish ten feet into the air.  You throw the fish with the item button, but there’s no indication you have these fish to throw unless you think to press it.  You’d think that Asterix has better things to do than put Cacofonix in his place…like, you know, rescuing Getafix.  Cacofonix's theme is pretty well executed, having a memorable tune while clearly sounding that it’s being played by someone who doesn’t know what he’s doing.

      After you’ve secured your home, you advance to the Roman Encampment.  It’s mostly a straightforward world until you get to a board that’s infamous for a case of some of the worst hit detection in game history.  At one point you encounter two horses.  One of them is bucking full tilt, but isn’t too tricky to jump over.  However, the second one is barely moving his feet back one at a time, and yet you will get thrown halfway across the stage just by bouncing off his ass without coming anywhere near his hooves.  Later I was defeated by another stage that was far too long and hazardous for its time limit.  The boss is a simple punch-the-projectile-back-at-the-boss deal.

       Next is The Forest.  I already mentioned the randomized difficulty, and nowhere is this problem more apparent than here.  It’s just before halfway through the game, and it is by far the most consistently hard world.  The worst board is one that features giant killer spiders, and those spiders are the least of your problems.  This level is a great example of every complaint I made about the unpredictable platforms.  In addition to all the standard legionaries running around, this board has a lot of natural enemies allied with them.  To paraphrase The Chronicles of Narnia, “Even some of the trees are on their side.”  Asterix must have also been hit by a shrink ray, because the plants and animals in this world are enormous.  As if to complete a Honey, I Shrunk the Kids reference, there’s also a board with anachronistic LEGOs.  This world also has an infamous boss.  Apparently you have to just press the D-Pad really fast to win this log game with a fat legionary.  In other words, it’s impossible to do until you somehow stumble upon the answer, and when you do there’s no challenge to it.  It’s a perfect example of how not to design gameplay.

      Then you go to Germany.  It’s one thing to fight your Roman aggressors, but it seems a bit inappropriate to attack every German you see just because you’re looking for someone who passed through the area.  I think the same thing happened in Star Trek into Darkness.  Reflecting the game’s odd sense of humor, Germany has one of the more absurd hazards: fat opera singers who explode when you walk past them.  If I saw a woman so fat that simply walking past her would cause her to reach critical mass and blow up, I would think twice before doing so.  Fortunately for Getafix, Asterix clearly does not have time for such ethical trifles.  Then again, there’s also a board later in the game that requires you to murder old women to get through it.  This world has what may be one of the worst ones in the game (the spider board is pretty stiff competition).  It‘s a labyrinth of sausage links populated by turbopacers and guys in bathrobes who throw axes or sausages at you (Asterix can punch away the axes, but not the sausages).  I had no idea where to go, and the board certainly doesn’t give you the time to figure it out in one try.  The Sausage Stage is also the least visually appealing board in the game (it’s just sausages against a generic sky background).  I could not get past it.  The world is over once you successfully outrun a beer flood.

     After this comes the Roman Galley, which for some reason starts off in a snow mountain that would be more appropriate in Germany.  This stage is relatively easy, but it features annoyingly oversized snowflakes.  The rest of the world is pretty straightforward, and I managed to get to the boss, a big fat alligator.  It was an easy boss made challenging by terrible hit detection, while sneaking up behind him, I was more likely to stub my toe against his back than land a blow.

      Finally, you get to Rome, which is arguably the easiest world in the game.  The hardest level in it was the aqueduct stage, and that was average despite some pesky Roman archers that pop up out of nowhere.

Wtf, how are those guys even fitting over those arches?

A few boards later, you’ll be running across a Roman banquet table while Sylvester Stallone throws food at you.  Eventually you’ll get to the boss, where you find yourself fighting two tigers while a static background graphic of Julius Caesar looks on grimly.  Because the tigers don’t actually attack you, they’re pretty easy to defeat. 

      Asterix and the Great Rescue has its clever moments, but it also possesses too many objective flaws to truly give a pass.  When it’s hard it’s hard for all the wrong reasons.  Still, most of the time it’s just playable enough to be fun.  I would love to see James Rolfe do an episode of The Angry Video Game Nerd and/or James & Mike Gaming Mondays of this game.