The film begins with Mike Blueberry as a Cajun teen freshly relocated to a town on the outskirts of the desert. He quickly falls head over heels for a prostitute. An incident when Mike stands up for her against one of her rougher clients, Wallace "Wally" Sebastian Blount (Michael Madsen- Reservoir Dogs, Species), ends with Mike's near fatal wounding and her death. Mike is rescued by some Chiricahau Apache, who tend to his injuries and teach him thier shamanistic ways.

Flash forward years later, and the adult Mike Blueberry (Vincent Cassel- Irreversible, Crimson Rivers, La Haine) is now the town Marshall. A Prussian geologist (Eddie Izzard) arrives with a map to the Chiricahau's sacred mountain, which raises the interest of a local land baron (Geoffrey Lewis) and the just strolled in from the past Wallace Sebastian Blount. Mike is forced to confront his old demons. Along with his Indian companion and spirit guide Runi (Temuera Morrison) and the land baron's daughter (Juliette Lewis), Mike chases the murderous Blount into the mountains where Mike must face him in a spiritual battle.

Well, this one is confusing. It is confusing what the attraction could have been for the actors. Cassel and Konen worked together before in Dobermann and supposedly the two hatched the idea for the film, semi-basing it on Cassel's experiences with peyote. Juliette Lewis even does some full frontal skinny dipping, so she must have invested some trust in the project; maybe just because they gave the aspiring singer a chance to badly croak out a version of "Danny Boy." Madsen does his Madsen thing, which even when just collecting a paycheck, still works. In addition to the names I mentioned, there are also small roles for Djimon Honsou, Tcheky Karyo, Colm Meany, and yes, this film does contain Borgnine. Even though the characters are basic Western caricatures, the wise Indian, the haunted hero, the good daughter, the greedy geologist (haven't we all seen that one before), they don't have any real spark. Unlike the comics, they aren't particularly well-drawn. Cassel is an actor I really like, but he doesn't have any meat to bite into.

It is strange. the film feels overlong, yet there isnt enough character. So, it isn't a matter of feeling the film needed to have scenes cut. No, it is a matter of the story being so scant and the characters so thinly drawn, you just wish something happened with a convincing amount of energy or depth.

Now, I was a big comic book geek back when the Blueberry comics began to get collected into trades in the late 80's/early 90's. I read a few of them. My memory of the stories is fuzzy, but the film looks like they lifted bits from maybe two or three stories, mainly trying to wedge in the characters, but really it doesn't feel cohesive. The story has an arc, sure, but it is just emotionally flat. Actionwise nothing really happens, and much of the film seems to hinge on the extended CGI sequences of Blueberrys' spiritual journey and a bunch of half-hearted spiritual musings.

In terms of the look and tone, now, here's where I see a big misstep. What director Konen and company seem to ignore, is that Blueberry isn't a popular comic based solely on its character or concept. Unlike, your Batman's, your Superman's, and such, which had many different artists and writers interpretations of the character and look, Blueberry's appeal was always due to one artist, one look, so it seems like a mistake not to emulate that. To its readers, Blueberry is Moebius art, sun drenched vistas, light warm color schemes, acutely detailed work that pops off the page. To Konen, Blueberry is the completely opposite, excessively grainy, dark, muddled, and swamped in shadows like a David Fincher movie or Morbid Angel video. In my opinion, it is a mistake as big as..., oh, I don't know, taking Dr. Suess' wonderful surreal visions and turning it into some commercial, juvenile gag-filled, gaudy eye candy.

If I want a dark, surreal, spiritual Western, I'll watch El Topo. The mystery, or the event, behind Blueberry's buried spiritual baggage, the hinge of his psychedelic journey, is actually pretty obvious. He and Blount go a mescaline trippin', seeing some visions that is sort of 2001 meets Beyond the Minds Eye meets the Discovery Channel, what with all of the centipedes, snakes, and anemones. It just doesn't jump to life and ends up being boring, more an excuse for excessive oblique visuals rather than some deep message.

The DVD: Columbia TriStar

Picture: Anamorphic Widescreen. As I said, it is a pretty dark and grainy film. Konen and cinematographer Tetsuo Nagata deliver some of the most muted tracking shots of the usually beautiful Mexican desert. In their eyes the West was brown. Brown, brown, oh so very brown. On the technical side the transfer is fine, free of any glaring problems. On the print side, it isn't as good as it could be for a film this recent. The grain and color are obviously meant to be pretty gritty, so I wont fault them. The print still shows some slight wear and tear. Contrast is slightly grayed and the definition is just a tad on the weak side for a film this new.

Sound: English or French Dolby Digital 5.1 tracks with optional English, French, or Spanish subtitles. Being an international-minded production, while the star may be French, the rest of the cast is English speaking, and that is the intended language. Cassel's lines are over dubbed, though. I've heard him speak English, so I think it may actually be him just re-dubbing his dialogue, probably fixing his lines in post production. The fx and music are very well mixed, and the film has some neat fx soound design in the trippy scenes.

Extras: Nuttin'. Just a few Columbia trailers (including those annoying default ones that play before loading the discs menu), mainly direct to video fare like Renegade (which basically tries to pass it off as a trippy action film), Frankenfish, and Unstoppable.

Conclusion: Well, it just doesn't work. A cast of well known faces and capable actors and a budget for some modern computer generated fx wont make up for a thin script and emotionless direction. Columbia just puts the film out there. The transfer is fine, but barebones, and clearly not expected to generate much interest. It is okay but more so just to see such a eclectic cast in such a mess, so the most I can say is rent it. I cannot imagine there is much of an audience that would deem it worthy of placing in their movie library. If you want Blueberry, go get the comics. They are real pretty. This ain't.