Iznogoud is a hard comic book to be made into a movie. The stories are about 8 pages and they more or less fallow the same formula - Iznogoud the great vizier gets idea how to kill the good Caliph (usually involving some magical objects or gimmick) and after few faild atemps the plot turns against him and he end-up turn into a frog or nail, or something.
The movie starts pretty interesting with a pseudo-bollywood musical number that explains Iznogoud goals and creates the Arabian night setting. Sadly the next 40 minutes or so, are a mess of different Iznogoud plots, sadly all handle poorly. The plot to turn Caliph into a frogs turns out to be a dream, the plot with two Genies was pointless, and the plot to turn Caliph invisible was so forced. The only good part was when Izngoud thinks that Caliph actually dies. The second half when the main plot finally kicks in is a little bit better and there are some funny jokes now and then, but overall predictable. There are some jokes I don't get. For example - at one point the magic frog escape from Izngoud. During the movie they keep showing the shots of the frog when they cut to the palace, and while I was thinking it is building up to something at the end... nope, it was pretty pointless.
As a whole this movie is not bad - Visuals are fantastic, few jokes made ma laugh out-loud, musical numbers are OK and you can tell that the cast had fun with it, but at the same time the plot is either predicable or makes little sense, there are plenty of pointless moments and overall they could done a much better job.
The movie starts pretty interesting with a pseudo-bollywood musical number that explains Iznogoud goals and creates the Arabian night setting. Sadly the next 40 minutes or so, are a mess of different Iznogoud plots, sadly all handle poorly. The plot to turn Caliph into a frogs turns out to be a dream, the plot with two Genies was pointless, and the plot to turn Caliph invisible was so forced. The only good part was when Izngoud thinks that Caliph actually dies. The second half when the main plot finally kicks in is a little bit better and there are some funny jokes now and then, but overall predictable. There are some jokes I don't get. For example - at one point the magic frog escape from Izngoud. During the movie they keep showing the shots of the frog when they cut to the palace, and while I was thinking it is building up to something at the end... nope, it was pretty pointless.
As a whole this movie is not bad - Visuals are fantastic, few jokes made ma laugh out-loud, musical numbers are OK and you can tell that the cast had fun with it, but at the same time the plot is either predicable or makes little sense, there are plenty of pointless moments and overall they could done a much better job.