The Allnighter isn’t exactly a quintessential movie from the 1980s, probably not even second tier either, and while it’s pretty safe but it’s light-hearted entertainment.
La Magnifique
(1987)
Genre(s): Action, Comedy
Kino Lorber| NR – 94 min. – $24.95 | June 8, 2021
Date Published: 05/29/2021 | Author: The Movieman
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Kino Lorber provided me with a free copy of the Blu-ray I reviewed in this Blog Post.
The opinions I share are my own.
THE MOVIE — 3½/5 |
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Plot Synopsis: Francois (JEAN-PAUL BELMONDO) is a reclusive novelist whose wild imagination gets the best of him. Becoming the lead character from his own book, the dashing spy-hero Bob Saint-Clair, Francois is thrown into the middle of his latest espionage case. Only with the help of Francois’ beautiful and enticing neighbor (JACQUELINE BISSET), filling the role of Saint-Clair’s seductive assistant Tatiana, can the author save the world from his editor (VITTORIO CAPRIOLI), who has been transformed into dastardly secret agent Karloff. Together, our duo gets caught in a whirlwind of chaos, betrayals, confrontations and mutual attraction.
Quick Hit Review: There was a little concern on my part with the first 10-minutes of Le Magnifique (a.k.a. The Magnificent One), as it was filled with oddball scenes and rather unfunny slapstick scenes and a hammy performance from our lead secret agent, played by Jean-Paul Belmondo. Clearly trying to spoof the James Bond franchise. But then it’s revealed this is all in the head of novelist Francois so the cheesy nature of the story, outrageous action scenes and over-the-top acting begins to make sense. As such, I began to really get into the film. It’s nothing incredible although under Philippe de Broca is at least unique and stars Jean-Paul Belmondo and the lovely Jacqueline Bisset were quite good together, both in the real and fantasy worlds. All in all, Le Magnifique was an entertaining adventure-comedy that has its fun moments; it’s not to the level of an Austin Powers (as the back cover compares this to), but I had plenty of fun with this.
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SPECIAL FEATURES – 1½/5 |
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Features include an Audio Commentary with Film Historians Howard S. Berger, Steve Mitchell and Nathaniel Thompson and the Theatrical Trailer (3:32). |
VIDEO – 4½/5 |
| Kino Lorber releases Le Magnifique onto Blu-ray where it’s presented in the original 1.66 widescreen aspect ratio and given a 1080p high-definition transfer. Presumable KL received this from StudioCanal and no restoration work was down, however even so, I found the picture to be relatively good looking, detail is fairly sharp and colors nicely balanced. The grain is a bit strong, however as a whole I highly doubt this has looked better. |
AUDIO – 4¼/5 |
| The disc comes with French and English DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 tracks, with the latter being the default option, so if you’re like me and want to watch a movie in the native language, you will have to manually change it (and honestly, the English dubbing isn’t very good IMO). Being a nearly 50 year old movie, the lossless track is rather nice, dialogue comes through with good clarity and there is some okay depth during the more action-centric sequences. |
OVERALL – 3/5 |
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Overall, Le Magnifique is an interesting spy-spoof of a film and while not all of the comedy works, I still had a good time watching, thanks to the two leads with Jean-Paul Belmono and Jacqueline Bisset. |
Check out some more 1080p screen caps by going to page 2. Please note, these do contain spoilers.