Among all the comic strips adapted for the screen ,"Largo Winch" is somewhat better than the movies made before (Tintin,Asterix,Michel Vaillant,Blueberry etc) .The reason can be found in the very nature of Francq /Van Hamme 's cartoon books :they are more "realistic " than their peers' works,their screenplays are cinema stories with astute flashbacks blending the present with the past ,they are aimed at the teenagers/young adults market.The subject (dough is in the center of the plot) may repel some but Largo is not that much interested in it and the last sequence (faithful to the book ,except for a detail)shows a man talking with a little boy ,displaying nostalgia for a childhood in a tender family.(the cover of the second book shows two Largo:as a man and as a boy,the man has his hand on his former self's shoulder.)
The scenes in the prison are botched and the 100 pages of the book are treated in less than an hour.So the necessity(?) to introduce a second heir and to turn Scott-Thomas's character into a villain .
Let's say it:the movie is not on a par with the book ;the story took place in New York,they chose Hong Kong instead ,which is not a bad choice ,but the purple passages lack the strength they had on the paper:the death of the tycoon,sapped by cancer,the hellish Turkish prisons (a nod at "Midnight express"?),and the scenes on the island which verge on melodrama .
But the biggest surprise is the complete absence of Simon Ovronnaz who appeared on page 19 and would be to Winch what Captain Haddock is to Tintin.Some suggest they save the character for Largo Winch II which is to be released next February .
The scenes in the prison are botched and the 100 pages of the book are treated in less than an hour.So the necessity(?) to introduce a second heir and to turn Scott-Thomas's character into a villain .
Let's say it:the movie is not on a par with the book ;the story took place in New York,they chose Hong Kong instead ,which is not a bad choice ,but the purple passages lack the strength they had on the paper:the death of the tycoon,sapped by cancer,the hellish Turkish prisons (a nod at "Midnight express"?),and the scenes on the island which verge on melodrama .
But the biggest surprise is the complete absence of Simon Ovronnaz who appeared on page 19 and would be to Winch what Captain Haddock is to Tintin.Some suggest they save the character for Largo Winch II which is to be released next February .