Der 7bte Zwerg (2014) Reviews

• Possibly one too many

  Horst_In_Translation2014-10-17

  "Der 7bte Zwerg" is loosely connected to the "Snow White" "and Sleeping Beauty" fairy tales. It follows two live action movies with some of Germany's comedy elite (German comedy legend Otto Waalkes and 6 others) playing the seven dwarfs. While I actually kinda enjoyed these two films, unfortunately this animated movie here did not do too much for me. The animation is solid and it was a nice idea to make the dwarfs look like the actors from the previous 2 films, especially as these were also back to lend them their voices again. However, the story just felt too weak for me overall. The writing came (among others, including prolific actor (and also one of the dwarfs) Boris Aljinovic who directed his very first movie here) from Bernd Eilert again, who was also in charge of writing the two live action movies. One of the emotional highlights was probably when the dwarfs became friends with the depressive dragon, but it did not impact me at all, which makes me come to the conclusion that this is really one for smaller children. I would say that the side plots and minor references were frequently more interesting and fun to watch than the core story. I enjoyed seeing all the fairytale references early on at the 18th birthday party or how they displayed Snow White and Sleeping Beauty as sort of BFFs in a modern way. The trip to the evil queen and everything they went through there (and also the way they returned and came out right at the castle) seemed randomly rushed in and they could have done so much more than that quality-wise. Female rock singer Nina Hagen voices the evil queen (she also appeared in the other dwarf films already), but while her voice has huge recognition value and fits evil characters nicely, it always seems the same to me. Sadly, I cannot really recommend this movie. However, you should actually watch the live action dwarf movies first and then decide for yourself, if you are interested in this one as well. Maybe you can appreciate it more than I did. In general, I would suggest watching one of the many German children's book live action adaptations that come out these days. Many of them are real quality, but for some reason German animation movies are still several steps behind in terms of quality.

• Hysterically funny

  rannynm2015-08-18

  I really enjoyed the movie. It is hysterical. The movie is about Princess Rose (Peyton List), who has an 18th birthday celebration and accidentally pricks her finger on a needle that is held by Bobo and cursed by the evil queen, Dellamorta. The needle puts her immediately into a deep sleep. After Princess Rose falls asleep, Bobo then accidentally puts the rest of the castle into a slumber. The only way to get Princess Rose to awaken is by a "true love's kiss". The film takes place at a castle. There is a party thrown for Princess Rose and all of her fairytale friends attend: Snow White, Little Red Riding Hood, The Wolf, Cinderella, The Seven Dwarfs and others. The main characters are the Seven Dwarfs but, they have different names than we are used to. There is Cookie, Sunny, Cloudy, Ralphy, Speedy, Tschakko and Bobo. Bobo is the clumsy one of the group. Every time his shoelaces come undone, something bad happens. Even though the evil witch, Dellamorta and her dragon, Burner are not invited to the celebration, she makes a grand appearance anyway. The dwarfs are taken on an adventure when they set out to find Jack who is the only one who can wake up princess Rose with a "true love's kiss". The dwarfs get into so many sticky situations along their journey to find Jack. Finally, they find Jack and they hurry back to see if the "true love's kiss" will save Princess Rose. You'll have to watch the movie to find out. The Seventh Dwarf is an outstanding movie. It is full of comedy, adventure, music and dancing. The actors have great comedic timing. The actors amazed me with their singing performances. I have to commend the directors for bringing these characters to life. My favorite part of this movie is when the dragon, Burner shows Bobo one of his favorite things he likes to do. He asks Bobo to promise not to laugh. After he shows Bobo his secret, their new friendship takes a bad turn. Soon afterwards, Bobo and the Dwarfs make Burner feel better and they end up being best friends. My favorite character is Bobo because he is always happy and is hilarious. The message of the film is: As long as you have friends by your side, you can accomplish anything. I rate this movie four out of five stars and recommend it for ages 4 to 18 as well as adults. For more reviews by youth, go to kidsfirst dot org.

• Very cute. I believe kids would like it.

  voyou-703-6553502015-04-09

  This review is about the English version. It all started so-so, but 20 minutes later I realised I was hooked by its charm. I watched the rest in a better spirit and in a forgiving mood. There is just enough in The 7th Dwarf to soften up an old fart like me. The animation is not the best out there, but the graphic design is very cute. The songs have rather poor lyrics, but they've got enough heart and soul to make up for it. The humour, very gentle, did make me laugh at times. The pace is perfect, not rushing into the common frenzy plaguing the genre. The high points for me are Burny the dragon, and Nina Hagen voicing the villainess. The ice monster also looks pretty cool; I wonder if it would successfully scare a child. Ah, and in the end credits, there is a section for the "Children born during this Production." I told you this film was cute.

• One big fairy tale muddle

  TheLittleSongbird2015-08-11

  As a huge fan of animation and as someone intrigued with the idea of mixing different fairy tale characters, Fairytale: Story of Seven Dwarfs, despite a few good qualities, was a let down. While the animation isn't amazing, it's not awful either, and is the asset of Fairytale: Story of Seven Dwarfs that comes off the least badly. A lot of the character designs with the exceptions of Burny and the ice monster (both of which are pretty cool-looking) are ugly and lack expression, but the colours are beautiful and vibrant and the backgrounds have a lot of colour and detail. The fairy tale references early on in the film are fun to spot, some of the music score has the right amount of energy and melodious whimsy and while the voice acting on the whole is not that great Nina Hagen is deliciously evil as Dellamorta. The character designs, as aforementioned, are ugly with a couple of exceptions. The songs are very weak, they try to be emotive and sweet but sound irritating, mawkish and dumbed down and escape your head after a few hours. Fairytale: Story of Seven Dwarfs contains a muddled script, with lots of half-baked moral lessons, juvenile dialogue and misplaced innuendo that interferes with the generally safe (perhaps too safe) tone the film adopts. The story had a very good concept, but spoils it with a complete lack of wit or originality, it's mostly pretty charmless too, most of the second half seemed rushed, some parts felt randomly shoe-horned in and any emotional parts seemed downplayed or forced. Fairytale: Story of Seven Dwarfs has characters that are not only visually unappealing but annoy rather than charm, and that's including the dwarfs. There are even some racially stereotypical mermen. And of the voice acting, Hagen is the only one who doesn't irritate or sound bored. Overall, has moments but is one big fairy tale muddle as an overall whole. 3/10 Bethany Cox

• Very Flawed, but Good for the Kids

  kieraemca2016-06-22

  I had no idea what to expect when going into the film. Was I going to get a completely awful and painful experience? Would it be a timeless and little-known treasure? Would it be so hilariously bad that I'd get a good laugh out of it? In the end, though I did laugh at some of the poorer voice acting and some of the cheesiness, the movie was mostly a mixed bag. With each new scene, I had no clue what I was going to get. There were plenty of surprises; some good, some bad. Let me start with my main complaints: Although each dwarf had a personality, as did the villain Dellamorta, but Princess Rose and Jack had absolutely nothing. They felt like plastic action figures that the director was controlling in the background, and Snow White was completely pointless to the plot. The voice acting also got pretty bad at points, especially with Jack. I laughed quite a lot whenever I heard him speak, regardless of what he actually said. Everything about his voice just seemed so off, so uncaring, that I had to giggle. The pacing was also very off, nothing really flowed properly. At first, I thought this would be an adventure film, but eventually it turned out that it would take over half an hour just for the curse to be put into place, followed by another ten minutes of planning for the trip, and then suddenly the dwarfs are right outside Dellamorta's castle. The part with the suicidal tap-dancing dragon also felt like it came out of nowhere. I will say, however, that this part did give Bobo some nice character development. And my last complaint was the music. It was atrocious. The final song was forgettable, but passable, but other than that, just no. The first song is literally about making a cake, that later gets destroyed, and has no real bearing on the plot. Sitting through that song was pain enough, but having it turn out to be a pointless musical outburst really made me angry. Then there was the rip-off of High-ho it's off to work we go that the dwarfs were constantly singing, and every time it came on I had to turn the volume off. It was that annoying. I will say that the villain's song gave her a reason to hate the king, even if it was an exposition song and it wasn't a good one at that. Now for the good things. I think that having Sleeping Beauty/Rose wear a suit of armor all her life was a very creative and interesting change to the story. The castle covering itself in ice was also a very interesting interpretation on the curse. Although the movie was poorly paced, Bobo and the dragon Bernie did have decent character arcs and the rest of the dwarfs at least had a little character. The animation was nothing to write home about, but there was nothing too poor about it as long as the object being animated wasn't in a liquid state. (Seriously, any liquid in this movie looked awful) But despite a few animation hiccups, the characters were all well designed, and I will give the film props for having Rose and Jack already be in love before the curse was put into effect. Overall, there were a lot of original and interesting ideas and decent animation. If the story would have been better paced with less exposition and more well-rounded characters, the movie could have been something I might have even enjoyed. However, I do not regret watching it, and there is nothing bad in it for kids, so in the end The Seventh Dwarf is a good movie for the younger audiences it is directed at. 4/10