The Extraordinary Adventures of Adele Blanc-Sec, The Movie

Or "Les aventures extraordinaires d'Adele Blanc-Sec" is a 2010 French film from acclaimed director   Luc Besson (of The Fifth Element and The Professional fame) is an adaptation of a French comic series by Jacques Tardi published in the mid 1970's.

This is a crazy, funny movie with wit and charm. It never devolves into the common denominator humor found in far too many comedies these days. It is in essence as Gaslight fantasy set in 1910 with our plucky heroine Adele Blanc-Sec, herself an author of adventure novels, searching for the court physician of Ramses the 2nd so she can raise him from the dead to cure here ailing sister. Things don't go exactly as planed. She digs up the wrong mummy,

fortunately he proved to to be a nice chap to have tea with.

The lovely French actress Louise Bourgoin admirably portrays Adele Blanc-Sec with understated humor. Here is one of the French posters for the film.

I happen to own an English translation of the Tardi comic this film is based on "Adele and the Beast" and this film is a faithful adaptation of the comic.

 The Pterodactyl egg in the museum as it appears in the movie.

 The Pterodactyl egg in the museum as it appears in the comic.

Its not the action movie this trailer makes it out to be, but the film is paced very well. There is an English dubbed version floating around but I recommend you watch it in French with subtitles.

This movie was made with the approval of the original artist Mr. Tardi and its part of a three movie deal. I'm happily looking forward to to more movies in the future.


You can buy a US format version Blueray DVD of the film on Amazon here. Or the UK format (PAL) version DVD of the film here.