- Released: September 25th, 2024
- Directed by: Sven Unterwaldt Jr.
- Running time: 1h 45min
- Rating 3/5
Synopsis
My Thoughts
You know me, I have kind of an odd soft spot for these movies even if they're not very good. And this one...yeah, it's nothing groundbreaking or special, but I still enjoyed it to an extent.
The plot this time mainly follows Helene as her parents have lost a lot of money and plan on moving out to a different city. Helene doesn't want to leave her friends and school behind, so she sabotages Ida's plans to raise awareness for the forest by instead having the class aid her in performing at a fashion show. However, Helene over the course of the movie starts to realize where her heart really lies and what is really important, even if that doesn't mean always getting what she wants.
It's a solid enough setup. There's a few subplots (e.g. Jo and Ida romance, Jo's friend Silas getting into trouble, another romance with the principal, etc.) but thankfully it does somewhat balance its plots well. The main focus really lies on Helene's conflict and to a lesser extent Ida's.
I do think that having Ida be a slightly less major character might put off some people, especially since Helene (a notoriously unlikable character in the previous movies) takes center stage this time, but I don't know, honestly I think that they did a pretty good job of writing Helene here. She's less of a one-dimensional bully and you really do see over the course of the movie that she grows as a person and wants to do the right thing, even if initially her motivations are obviously selfish.
I also enjoyed her relationship with her cat magical animal, Karajan. They don't instantly hit things off but it goes pretty well later on. I do kinda wonder if giving Helene a magical animal at the start of the movie was a good idea (because this is back when she was selflish and kind of a bully. It could be seen as rewarding such behavior), but since at least Karajan had a positive impact on her character I guess maybe he was just the nudge in the right direction she needed to redeem herself.
Silas' subplot is also handled quite decently, thought I cared less about his character and his bond with his magical animal, crocodile Rick. They're fine characters but they're just not as relevant and interesting as Helene and her arc. I also just found them to be less likable.
Another thing about Rick that bothers me is that for whatever reason he's anthro. All the other magical animals look like realistic animals (e.g. walking on two or four paws if their realistic counterpart does so), so why Rick walks on his hind legs is a mystery to me. His design in general seems just a tad too cartoon-y to fit properly into this universe. Yes, characters like Rabbat and Yuri also do have a slight style to them, but they still look mostly like a (stylized version of) real penguin and real fox. Rick meanwhile feels like an obvious cartoon. Even his eyes are just far more expressive and positioned weirdly for a crocodile. I don't know, something about this design bothered me.
The rest of the movie is, eh, fine, I guess. The songs are less cringeworthy than in the first movie, thankfully. But the rest of the movie is nothing to write home about. It's just a basic kid's movie. I also don't like how the plot very conveniently had the T-rex skeleton collapse and then the kids were just able to fix it all in one night. Something that can take the most skilled of paleontologists ages to do. It just felt too out-there and unrealistic to me. Also seriously, those bones somehow weren't irreparably damaged by that fall? Just a bit too hard to take seriously when solutions to big problems presented are this simple.
It's not a bad movie, but I wouldn't really recommend it either unless you like the first two movies. For me I do like those so it's fine, but there's not a lot of worth here to really make it stand out.
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