Renegade (2004)

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

I'm one of those who watched Blueberry awaiting a comic book adaptation and, needless to say, wasn't impressed. Maybe the title itself was misleading, since i see there was a release called Renegade. That one i'd surely avoid, which, in turn, would have spared me the disappointment.Anyhow, if you're not familiar with the comic book, there's a whole level of discussion made obsolete. We're left with some nice visuals, yet they get swiftly forgotten by poor CGI which should represent psychedelic visions. Since Blueberry has been released in 2004, i.e. several years after Matrix and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon set new standards for special effects, there is no excuse for these visual blurbs.

I'm a huge fan of Blueberry:the comic. There are actually many American heroes in french comics that Americans have probably never heard of. There's of course "Blueberry", "Buck Danny", "Comanche", "XIII", etc. Some are quite naive, and others are very, very good. The story that inspired the movie: "The lost German's mine" and its sequel "The specter with the gold bullets" is actually one of the best graphic/scenario combination I've ever read and is still one of my favorites.Unfortunately they never thought of giving the director's job to someone who understands the epoch and the place's context. In making this movie, two big mistakes were made.The first one was to give Apache mysticism a way, way too prominent role (it is only addressed as a superstition linked to an Apache sacred and forbidden territory in the original) and magnify it to proportions that have no relation with reality. This utterly robs the story of its adventurous flavor and transforms it into a story of revenge.The second one was to give the role of Mike Blueberry to Vincent Cassel. Don't get me wrong, Vincent Cassel is a great actor. You only have to watch his impersonation of Mesrine, France's public enemy to see it. In that role he is just fantastic. But Blueberry is another thing altogether. In that role he is totally unconvincing and despite his best efforts, he just can't manage the American slang. It's just not natural. It's clearly fabricated. He also moves and walks like a Frenchman, not like an American. And as the whole cast orbits around this acting failure, it then fails to deliver itself. As this works as a cascade, if neither the hero, nor the cast is convincing, then even the background becomes out of key. It is also worth mentioning that using Louisiana or Canada to justify the use of french in an American movie has become so stale and stereotyped that it is now totally counterproductive. Instead of catching your attention on a clever twist, it now shows a serious creative limitation.The screenplay brought the original story crashing down in such a way that it became almost painful to watch. Even Steven Spielberg (who is obviously not a Frenchman and who took an enormous risk with Tintin's fans) managed to cut and paste several TinTin's adventures and make a homogeneous screenplay.There was nothing wrong with the comic's story and it should not have been tampered with. With such an adaptation disaster, I seriously doubt that a sequel might be attempted, and it's too bad, because the other very good Blueberry adventure is such a good material for a movie with a lot of sequels that one can only shake one's head at the lost opportunity. That saga comes in ten consecutive comics whose titles are: "Chihuahua Pearl", "The man that was worth $500,000", "Ballad for a coffin", "The outlaw", "Angel Face", "Broken-nose", "The long walk", "The ghost tribe", "The last card", "The end of the trail".The story is about the fate of the confederate gold after the civil war and what happens to Blueberry after being framed for its theft.So...I don't recommend Blueberry, the movie. Read the comics instead, you won't be disappointed. If you don't know where to find them, contact me, I'm on Facebook.

This is a film which I guess is not for everyone. Personally I find it a really good movie. Like in the Blueberry comic the film shows an America which is really rough, stripped from false heroism so often displayed in most westerns. This surely is a western, but with many Indian-American elements, like there is the use of hallucinogenic drugs and shamanism. Combined with typical western-action elements and the search for a treasure makes this movie an interesting mix. I haven't read all Blueberry comics, in fact only one or two albums, but surely will go through them now. Giraud was a master comic-maker, and a great influence for many. Today he died; 10-3-2012. If you want to check out his work, read the 'Incal' series, which was made together with writer/filmmaker Jodorowski. This comic was an inspiration for the film 'The fifth element' (when you read it, you'll see that the fifth element was an ordinary theft). Back to Blueberry; I give this film a 7.

Fans and readers of the Moebius/Giraud/Charlier comic book graphic novels will know that it does indeed have some surrealistic tendencies here and there (especially in "La mine de l'allemand perdu" 1971, which is probably the story where this movie get most inspiration from and "Angel Face"). However I can honestly say that pretty much the only thing that this movie has in common with the comics is the names of some of the characters. This movie is first and foremost a visual trip more related to "2001" or "Altered States" than any western you have ever seen. This is not necessarily a bad thing and definitely a different take on the western genre, but I do hope that there maybe will be a more "literary" adaption for either screen or TV. Story is pretty simple but told with quick cuts, constantly moving panning shots or some seriously weird CGI - In other words the camera is never still, which might make the story hard to follow for some. Still this IS a fascinating movie and the panning long shots are truly beautiful. Depending on ones tolerances for more or less mind altering substances this movie could be even better or awful in the extreme :-). I saw it rather sober, so 8 is a fair judgment in my opinion.