Marsupilami: successful bet for Philippe Lacheau (review)

After Shabat, Lacheau recovers the Marsu and immerses it in his trashy universe. Jamel Debbouze takes his Pablito back to bridge the gap. Two comic traditions that don’t speak the same language, but who end up getting along.

Taking over the Marsu after Alain Chabat was less a remake than a damn risky relay. In 2012, Sur la piste du Marsupilami assumed its joyful anachronism, its retro humor and its DIY sweetness. Fourteen years later, Philippe Lacheau inherits the spotted bug and immerses it in his own DNA. The gag mechanics are more frontal, noisier, sometimes panzer – but not necessarily messed up.

The film is based on a simple principle: bringing together two French comedic traditions which do not quite speak the same language. On the one hand, the Fifi gang, fans of immediate gags, heavy burlesque and trashy humor. On the other, Jamelwhich takes up his Pablito from 2012 and brings his more narrative and almost reassuring rhythm. Fifi calms things down, Jamel adapts and the shock produces a unique energy.

Where Chabat wrapped his excesses in tenderness and nostalgia, ecology and backdated humor, Lacheau favors speed and accumulation to modernize the whole. The story is diluted in favor of a succession of numbers, uneven but rarely off the mark. Not everything is subtle, but the film avoids the pitfall of being a pure calibrated product: we feel a desire to entertain without contempt, to make people laugh without cold calculation.

Technically solid, carried by an expressive digital Marsupilami, the film finds its balance when it slows down – when Jamel imposes his tempo, when the jungle becomes a playground again rather than a catalog of gags. Lacheau’s Marsu does not have the melancholy of its predecessor nor its operetta facetiousness, but it assumes its nature as a generous, contemporary pop comedy. The next generation fully meets its specifications.

By Philippe Lacheau. With Philippe Lacheau, Jamel Debbouze, Elodie Fontan… Duration: 1h39. Released February 4, 2026