Luc Besson doesn't often direct these days, but this remorselessly jolly French-language adaptation of Jacques Tardi's comic-book serial, full of heavily parodic early 20th-century characters who never quite say "Oh, la, la!" but constantly threaten to do so, may irritate as many as it charms.
Adèle (Louise Bourgoin, who was a weather girl not so long ago) is a reporter mixed up in the search for a prehistoric menace that terrorises Paris.
Mad professors, big game hunters and even a Scottish terrier compete with the pterodactyl and reanimated Egyptian mummies for attention as Adele attempts to save the day.
It's all very exhuberant and well mounted but Indiana Jones it is not.
The Extraordinary Adventures Of Adele Blanc-Sec (Les Aventures Extraordinaires D'Adele Blanc-Sec)
Cert: 12A
