Asterix at the Olympic Games (French: Astérix aux Jeux Olympiques) is a 2008 French Sword and Sandal comedy film. It adapts the comic book Asterix at the Olympic Games and is the third live-action theatrical adaptation of the René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo comic book series Asterix after Asterix & Obelix Take on Caesar and Asterix & Obelix: Mission Cleopatra, directed by Frédéric Forestier and Thomas Langmann and produced by the latter.
Asterix and Obelix must win at the Olympic Games in order to help their friend Lovesix save the Greek princess Irina from her forced marriage to the Roman Brutus. Brutus uses every trick in the book to have his own team win the games and get rid of his adoptive father Julius Caesar in the process.
The pretty stacked cast includes Clovis Cornillac as Asterix, Gérard Depardieu as Obelix, Stéphane Rousseau as Lovesix, Vanessa Hessler as Irina, Benoît Poelvoorde as Brutus, Alain Delon as Julius Caesar, Jean-Pierre Cassel as Getafix (his final film role), Alexandre Astier as Mordicus, and a number of celebrities from sports and show business in cameos.
Followed by Asterix & Obelix: God Save Britannia in 2012.
Asterix at the Olympic Games provides examples of:
- Actor Allusion:
- In his first scene in the film, Caesar is admiring himself in a mirror, and he's accompanied by the main theme of Le Clan des Siciliens (a mafia film in which Alain Delon played). Doubles as a Ennio Morricone Pastiche, since Ennio Morricone composed that theme and the camera angles make Caesar look like he's ready for a duel at dawn in a Spaghetti Western.
- Then, in the invoked example later, Caesar explicitly states that he doesn't owe anything to anyone — neither to the clan of Sicilians, nor to Rocco and his brothers (Rocco and His Brothers being another film where Alain Delon had starred).
- Adaptation Deviation: The Star-Crossed Lovers subplot between Lovesix and Irina provides the Call to Adventure that brings Asterix and Obelix to Greece instead of the Gaulish village wanting to participate in the Olympic Games just to piss the Romans off in the comic book.
- Altar Diplomacy: Irina's father King Samagas wants her to marry Brutus so Greece's ties to Rome will be stronger.
- Anachronism Stew: The "Sirtaki" dance is used in the film. It was composed and choregraphed for the 1964 film Zorba the Greek; it doesn't originate in Ancient Greece in any way.
- As Long as It Sounds Foreign: The Greek princess Irina. "Irina" is a Slavic name, its original Greek form would be "Eiréné" (Εἰρήνη in ancient Greek).
- Canon Foreigner: As far as characters with prominence go, Lovesix, Irina and Irina's father King Samagas are new characters who don't originate in the comics.
- Crazy-Prepared: Brutus' multiple assassination attempts on his father fail because Caesar not only has tasters, but he even has servants specifically to test his baths and the new booby-trapped mirror.
- Demoted to Extra: Edifis (Jamel Debbouze) returns from Mission Cleopatra, but only for a mere cameo.
- Epic Fail: Many things Brutus attempts to do to look cool simply... fail.
- Calling for his hunting hawk to come back on his arm. For some reason the bird of prey dives on him at full speed and crashes into him, making him fall from his horse.
- When throwing his helmet at his men expecting one to catch it, no-one catches it and it audibly falls on the ground.
- Even Evil Has Standards: As scheming and immature as Brutus is, he orders Pasunmotdeplus to stop playing with a lightsaber.
- Evil Wears Black: Brutus is the story's villain and he's often decked in black armor.
- Giftedly Bad: Brutus pretends to like poetry to impress Irina and turns the few words he wrote into a song, but he sucks at it big time, especially compared to Lovesix.
- Groin Attack: When Brutus uses a pole to long jump, his tender parts collide with the pole, much to the audience's amusement.
- Instant Messenger Pigeon: The messenger pigeon Lovesix sends from Gaul to Irina all the way to Greece arrives pretty fast, since she somehow counts "three Moons" from when she receives it.
- Janitor Impersonation Infiltration: Lovesix infiltrates the palace of Irina's father passing as a servant so he can see her.
- Metronomic Man Mashing: The Roman champion Humungus grabs the Egyptian pugilist by the leg and then slams him to the ground left and right.
- Punny Name:
- In French, Lovesix is named "Alafolix" (as in "à la folie", meaning loving someone like mad).
- King Samagas. In French, it sounds like "ça m'agaçe" ("it annoys me").
- Soccer player Zinédine Zidane as the Egyptian "Numérodis". In French it sounds like "Numéro 10" - "Number 10", which was Zidane's number in the national French soccer team.
- Scary Stinging Swarm: In the opening, Lovesix tries getting honey from a hive, and ends up chased by a swarm of bees.
- Shout-Out:
- The whole Chariot Race sequence obviously homages Ben-Hur
- Pasunmotdeplus discovers a lightsaber at Docteurmabus' home.
- "Ave moi!" spoken by Caesar may be this to To Be or Not to Be where an actor playing Hitler said "Heil myself!"... or it might just be a recycled joke.
- Slave Galley: Brutus and his cohorts are forced to row Caesar's ship in the end.
- Star-Crossed Lovers: Lovesix and Irina can't love each other in peace due to the Altar Diplomacy pact Irina's father did with Caesar, through which she's forced to marry Brutus.
- Treadmill Trauma: Cornedurus is seen running on a (completely anachronistic) man-powered treadmill in Greece, when he sees the Gauls arriving. Knowing they are completely invincible thanks to the Magic Potion, he gets distracted and falls backward.
- Tuckerization:
- Singer Francis Lalanne plays a Gaulish spectator named "Francix Lalanix".
- German Formula One race pilot Michael Schumacher as "Schumix".
- Wheel o' Feet: Obelix and Asterix run this way (since Obelix is always strong and Asterix is magic potion-empowered) when chasing after Claudius Cornedurus to ask him why he's running in their forest.
