- Released: September 29, 2022
- Directed by: Sven Unterwaldt Jr.
- Running time: 1 h 43 min
- Rating 3/5
Synopsis
My Thoughts
I did know that this movie was coming out last year, but somehow it never really crossed my mind to look for it at German/Austrian DVD stores until today. Granted, I missed my opportunity last year during winter break in Austria for this due to circumstances, but when I saw this DVD at a Saturn in Berlin I did of course buy it. I do have a fascination for these movies, mostly because I like Rabbat's design so much.
This movie, however, is surprisingly better than the first. Not that I had super high or low hopes for it, but this is actually a big step up. The first movie felt poorly structured, the characters weren't super likable and it was just overall rather underwhelming, and could even get really cringe at times when they were trying to be hip and felt the need to include song numbers. Most of these flaws have been at least somewhat fixed in this movie.
The characters this time around I actually like. There's a bit of a miscommunications with characters which can get frustrating, but I do like their development here. Ida is a lot more confident in herself here and her bond with the other characters feels believable. Jo actually gets into a bit of trouble once again, but this time mostly because of his magical animal, Juri the penguin, who is insistent on making Jo as popular as he can be even if it is in the wrong ways. Another character who gets a lot of development this time around is Anna-Lena, one of Ida's bullies who slowly starts to learn to think for herself and be kinder under the guidance of her magical animal, Caspar the chameleon. Heck, even Helene, the main bully, has one or two brief moments where she shows that there's more to her. Not an outright redemption (heck, it'd be too soon for that), but definitely a few moments that show that there is potential for growth for her character in the future, and that she's not just a one-note bully.
My only real disappointment regarding the characters is that Billy as well as Rabbat and Henrietta don't really have big roles anymore. Billy is mostly a side character now when he was definitely more of a main character last time around. He does have one or two scenes, but mostly he's just supportive of Ida and helps out with the musical. Rabbat is just there to give Ida advice and moral support sometimes, but again he doesn't do much. Henrietta doesn't even really have any purpose anymore, it seems; there's just a running gag with her they do where she's trying to learn to read but keeps misreading words. Which, I mean, is not a bad or annoying joke, but there's so little point to it and I wish her character got to do more. Heck, all of these three since they were main characters in the first movie, it's a bit disappointing they take so much of a back seat here.
Other improvements this time around are the plot (I was genuinely more interested in the play because I cared more about the characters here) and the mystery of who is making the holes. Last movie also had a mystery plot, but I feel that this one executes it better. And the final payoff of the musical and the true story behind the founding of the school was pretty sweet.
Something that didn't really improve but stayed the same as last movie is the animation, designs and incorporation into the real environments of the magical animals, by the way. They still don't look super high-budget or anything, but they do look good and blend into their surroundings well enough.
Now, for the elements of the movie I really didn't like. Starting with (once again) the cringe moments. Thankfully there's far less than last movie, but there's still one or two scenes where they have our characters sing a song that's supposed to be hip and cool, but just comes off as painfully cringe and trying to be hip than actually working. Very "how do you do, fellow kids" type of energy. There's also a scene where they have to stall during the musical while some characters are off doing something else, and the scene gets pretty long and drawn-out and cringe after a while.
Secondly: Juri. Sorry, but I just do not find this guy to be likable. He's Jo's new magical animal and from the start he's all for attention and being as cool and well-liked as possible. He's trying to rub this off on Jo as much as possible, particularly by trying to get him to date Helene, while Jo himself obviously has a crush on Ida (which Ida returns). They do try to later explain that Juri is deep down very lonely and a bit insecure about himself and tries to hide this behind this cool and try-hard facade, but at the same time I just genuinely don't think the motivation behind his actions was enough to get me to like him.
He's supposed to be Jo's magical animal, but he's consistently only looking out for what he himself wants, not what Jo wants. And a magical animal is supposed to be their partner's best friend. So like...kind of scummy behavior, especially when he keeps ignoring Jo's pleas to stop partnering him with Helene because Jo is so obviously uncomfortable with that. Heck, this even leads to a huge falling out between Jo and Ida, because she thinks Jo is ditching her in favor of her biggest bully. Just...yikes. Granted, Juri does come around, but he's just kind of too selfish and unlikable for most of the movie for me.
I feel they could've made this work, too. Remember, Jo got in a bit of trouble last movie for vandalizing the school quite a few times and pinning it on others, so I think it could make sense for him to be unpopular with the other students after that. After he's given Juri, the penguin sees that his companion still feels bad about this and wants to be well-liked again by his classmates, so Juri, with good intentions, tries to use his coolness and charm to make Jo as popular as well, he tries to do this through getting Jo close to Helene, because Helene is the most popular girl in class. However, he doesn't completely understand that his way of going about things is also hurting Jo's friendship with Ida in the process. Then they still have their falling out, followed by their heart to heart, they make up, and from then on Juri decides to let Jo be more in control of his own relationships, even if it means having to work harder to be popular again after last year where he vandalized the school.
Doesn't this sound like it just works better? Because with how it is in the current movie Jo is already well-liked by most people in his class (despite the events of the first film) and Juri just pretty much seems to be drawing all attention to him and Jo for selfish reasons, even if there's the underlying insecurity below that. I just feel that the version I just proposed makes Juri come off as a bit less selfish, more so just misguided.
Finally: They have this one character (Anna-Lena) who is supposed to have a great singing voice, but in the scenes she's singing there's just a few final high notes she can't quite reach clearly, making them sound impure. Which...is an issue especially the characters around her are constantly in awe of her singing voice. I think they either should've dubbed her over, gotten an actress who could actually reach those notes or just corrected it digitally in post? I don't know. She can sing overall quite well with the softer notes, but the final more high-pitched ones just never come out sounding pure and isn't very pleasing to the ears.
The rest of the movie was mostly fine, though. I still love Mrs. Cornfield, by the way. Her actress just puts so much charm and passion into her role despite the character not even having that much screen-time.
So overall: a step up from the first. Still overall a rather mediocre and basic children's film, but not bad by any means. I do wonder if they'll make more movies, though. There's definitely quite a lot of books in the series these movies are based off of, however the child (well, teen) actors they used are getting quite old (by child actor standards, of course) by now and I'm pretty sure that in a year or two they will really feel too old to be playing these characters. Unless they have this series age with the characters and follow them into college this probably won't work, but since these books are aimed at a rather young audience I doubt that'll happen. Maybe they'll introduce a new cast of characters if they do a third movie, who knows.
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