Filemón (Benito Pocino) and Mortadelo (Pepe Viyuela) are two agents of the TIA (Técnicos de Investigación Aeroterráquea), a secret government organization. They are assigned to retrieve a stolen device from Tirania, whose dictator has declared war on England by dropping a giant ball of dung on the Queen's palace. Complicating their mission is that their boss, El Super (Mariano Venancio), has sent super agent Fredy Mazas (Dominique Pinon) on the same task earlier, and Fredy has turned rogue and is trying to kill them.
Based on a long-running Spanish comic book series 'Mortadelo y Filemón' by Francisco Ibáñez, writer-director Javier Fesser and co-writer Guillermo Fesser have created a colourful and surreal world of secret agents, crazy gadgets and violent cartoon slapstick humour (people are squashed into pancakes, survive explosions with no ill effect other than a black face, leave man-shaped indentations when they run into doors, etc.). The plot takes a while to get into gear and oddly enough, the two principals don't cause as much mayhem as expected.
A lot of the jokes are rather ponderous and are slow to set up, and not having read the comic books, I suspect I missed many of the sight gags. My kids found parts of the film hilarious, rather like Lisa and Bart Simpson when they watch 'Itchy and Scratchy'.
Spanish with English subtitles.
2 out of 5 stars.
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