Go West! A Lucky Luke Adventure 720p - (2007 Lang: English)

FANTASTIC ANIMATION...

My first reaction to the initial few minutes of Lucky Luke's Go West adventure, is that it's one insanely funny movie with its plentiful sight gags, but that's it.

Co-written and directed by Olivier Jean Marie, who migrated Lucky Luke's adventures to the big screen with this effort, the story tells of a gang of robbers known as the Dalton Brothers, four felons who are of varying heights, whose lifestyle is to get guns, rob banks, get arrested, escape, wash, rinse and repeat. Beginning in New York, the foursome in their latest robbery managed to hide their loot in a wagon before being busted by Lucky Luke, the renowned cowboy whose speed of the draw makes him renowned all over.

But a band of settlers requested for Luke's assistance to lead them to their promised land, land that they paid to Crook (yes, what a name, for obvious reasons) who set a condition that the land he sold would be theirs only if they can arrive at the location in 80 days. So begins Lucky Luke's exodus with the European settlers leading them to the West Coast of USA, along with the Dalton brothers in his custody and their concern in regaining their loot from one of the settler's wagons, and Crook trying to foil everyone at every step of the way.

Going by the crowd reaction, predominantly made up of children, it certainly got positive feedback through the cheers by the kids. And it's not difficult to see why, as there were plenty of funny situations to lighten up the mood of even the moodiest person in the house. Almost every scene has something interesting to look at, with the narrative being quite witty in itself, and when the need calls for it, larger than life action sequences detailing the ups and downs of the various characters in their seeking of individual goals.

Lucky Luke, voiced by Lambert Wilson, quickly got forgotten though in the middle of the movie, and it became the Joe (Vlovis Comullac) and Averell (Bernard Alane) Dalton show, as the two steal the thunder from the virtually all-powerful hero. I guess it's no surprise that flawless heroes almost always tend to get upstaged by the villains, and here the villains clearly have more interesting facades to them, even though they may venture really close into stylistic and narrative influences of slapstick comedians.

Given the crazy way the story develops, its unique visual animation showcasing that 2D still can hold its own against its 3D or CG counterparts, so long as you have material to satisfy your target audience. Suitable for both children and adults alike.

This movie start great. The beginning when the Dalton brothers escape from their trial in New York just to be capture by Lucky Luke once again is pretty fun and full of energy, however as soon the plots kicks in with Lucky Luke escorting caravan the movie quickly turn into a hour and a half Road Runner cartoon. There is never a filling of threat for our hero as all the villains are either to stupid to create any danger or have over-the-top bad luck and their plans back-fire on them without any intervention of the main protagonist. Even the humor can gets way to slapstick with jokes I've seen hundreds time before in Looney Toons cartoons (They throw some cute In-jokes for Lucky Luke fans BTW)

On other hand... The animation however looks FANTASTIC!!! There are some Ren and Stimpy like expressions, backgrounds are rich and full of details and to be fair next to "The Princess and the frog" and "Illusionist" this must be the best hand drawn animation of the last decade.

So yhe, if you love the classic 2D animation this movie is great to look at, but the script is just hour and a half of slapstick humor and thats it.

The fourth and probably best animated feature starring the invincible western hero and the usual assortment of colorful friends and foes offers solid animation, some (although too few) clever jokes that transcend pure kiddie fare, and a fast-paced and entertaining, though not too original and episodic story, plus two overextended action sequences.

It's all in good spirit and despite some flat gags here and there and a general air of déjà vu this good-natured effort is likely to please the fans of the comic books.