A live action film based on the comics by Jacques Tardi. If I remember properly it's the amalgam of two adventures for Adele that Tardi did.

Set mainly in early 1900s Paris the film follows the odyssey of the titular Adele to cure her sister. It's a rather complicated odyssey involving Egyptian tombs and pterodactyls and rescues from the guillotine and resurrection magic. All because of a game of tennis. Besson skates a skilful line from black comedy to slapstick to comedy of observation to a little heroics. A French female Indiana Jones who doesn't take herself too seriously.

There are a number of great sequences in the film as Besson pokes fun at officialdom and official ways. It does partly feel like he is poking fun at the France of today as much of the France of the early 1900s. Adele may be trying to escape the restrictions of our current age as much as the fin de siecle. If one's making a film for a 2000s audience it's hard to not import 2000s worldviews into a representation of the past.

I enjoyed this one. Recommended.