The Extraordinary Adventures of Adèle Blanc-Sec on AllMovie

Writer-director-producer Luc Besson's affinity for megabudgeted, FX-heavy adventure spectacles is well-known and publicized; with his outing The Extraordinary Adventures of Adele Blanc-Sec, he adds yet another chapter to this tradition. An adaptation of a popular French comic book from the 1970s, it stars Louise Bourgoin (The Girl from Monaco) as the redheaded title character, a wisecracking, hard-living adventurer-cum-novelist living in pre-WWI France. As the tale opens, Adele is on a mission in Egypt, attempting to retrieve a sarcophagus and tote it back to Western Europe, but simultaneously attempting to fend off complications wrought by her nemesis, archaeologist Dieuleveult. She succeeds on both fronts, but upon returning runs headfirst into another issue: a Parisian scientist (Jacky Nercessian) with the power to heal Adele's comatose sister (Laure de Clermont-Tonnere) has accidentally let loose an ancient Pterodactyl above the Parisian skies. While a zany detective (Gilles Lellouche) and a hunter (Jean-Paul Rouve) attempt to eliminate the creature, the villains turn up yet again and try to thwart Adele's long-term plans.