Lucky Luke (2009)
Directed by James Huth

Film Review

Morris and René Goscinny must be spinning in their graves...  Just what did James Huth think he was doing?  The film may be titled Lucky Luke but it bears scant resemblance to the popular comic book creation beloved by French-speaking children and adults alike.  Completely lacking in charm and coherence, Huth's grotesquely self-indulgent, humourless comedy western alienates its audience right from the very first scene - an heretical attempt to give the hero a back story that means for the rest of the film he is a haunted neurotic, not the insouciant and amiable good guy we all know and love.  Jean Dujardin, great actor though he is, is woefully miscast - his Lucky Luke has absolutely nothing in common with Morris and Goscinny's creation and often comes across as a sad wreck of a man, unengaging, moody and frequently annoying.  Heaven alone knows why actors of the calibre of Melvil Poupaud and Sylvie Testud signed up to appear in this lumbering cinematic monstrosity, which is suitable neither for children (on account of its gratuitous violence) nor adults (on account of its gratuitous brain-frizzling inanity).  Ill-conceived, and poorly executed, the film could not have been more unsympathetic to the original BDs, which are infinitely superior to this trash.

Film Synopsis

Daisy Town was once a haven of peace before the outlaws, gamblers and other low-life took over and turned it into one of the most lawless places in the whole of the Wild West.  Only one man can restore the town to how it used to be, and that man is the cowboy Lucky Luke, the fastest gun in the West.  Lucky Luke has a strong emotional tie to the town, as this is the place where he was born.  No one is better suited to take on the likes of Billy Kid and Pat Poker, under whose reign Daisy Town has become a magnet for thugs and bandits of all kinds.

This is the place where Jesse James and Calamity Jane like to hang out, the place where they can indulge in their nefarious gun-slinging hobbies with complete impunity.  Lucky Luke is the purest of the pure, the most innocent of cowboys.  He hasn't killed a man in his life, and he has no intention of doing so now.  But how can he bring order to this troubled town without giving his enemies a taste of their own lead-lined medicine?  When he falls in love with Belle Starr, a beautiful saloon bar singer, he has just the incentive he needs to get serious about cleaning up the wildest town in the west...