Asterix and The Vikings

Loosely based on Goscinny and Uderzo’s comic book ‘Asterix and the Normans’, this conventionally animated feature centres on a wimpish young Gaul called Justforkix and the shipload of Vikings who kidnap him in the mistaken belief that he’ll be able to teach them to fly. Inevitably, Asterix and his rotund chum Obelix are dispatched – avec magic potion – to rescue this terrified ‘champion of fear’, but when they arrive they find he’s developed Stockholm Syndrome and fallen for both his captors and their big chief’s daughter, Abba, who, it transpires, is a bit of a women’s rights campaigner.

Presumably to appease a new generation unfamiliar with the Frenchmen’s marvellous books, contemporary issues like an SMS pigeon that types out messages with its beak and a couple of funky dance tunes are also thrown into the mix. Nordic directors Fjeldmark and Møller have done well to keep Goscinny’s pun-filled word play to the fore, and they’ve overseen – with the aid of Uderzo himself – some competent animation. But please, no more American accents on European productions; it’s just not cricket.