Movie Thoughts: Playmobil: The Movie (2019)

• Released: 6 December 2019
• Directed by: Lino DiSalvo
• Running time: 1 h 39 min
• Rating 1.5/5

Synopsis

Two siblings get transported to the world of living Playmobil toys and must defeat a villain.

My Thoughts

Everyone's said it, and so will I: this is what we expected The LEGO Movie to be like. And it's not good.

The animation is serviceable, but does nothing creative. Despite being toys, the animation makes them move pretty much like regular live beings without any restrictions, resulting in movements the stiff Playmobil toys would never be able to pull off.

The characters are boring and pretty one-note. There is some development, but overall nothing worth sitting through an hour and some 50 minutes of this nonsense for.

The worlds are generic at most and lack any charm or creativity (which, again, The LEGO Movie definitely had). The villain is obnoxious at most and doesn't serve remotely as a real threat. The songs are mediocre at best and horribly annoying at most. Who even asked for this to be a musical? I sure as hell didn't.

The magic sucking them into the Playmobil world and bringing everything to life is never explained and honesty. It just exists and I guess we're supposed to deal with it.

Fun fact: I actually do have a history of playing with these toys. More so than LEGO even. However, none of the charm of playing with them was brought to this film. They may not be as versatile as LEGO, but they were still fun to play with. Here, it just makes looking at these things feel like a chore. I honestly don't even think the toys are that popular outside of Europe? I remember playing with the knight castle, forester house and horse stables, and these were fun sets. But that wasn't shown here at all.

Also Daniel Radcliffe guy is barely in it. Just saying.