El gran premio: A toda velocidad

Grand Prix of Europe is a pleasant but unimaginative animated feature that seems more interested in keeping toddlers quiet than in telling a compelling story. The plot-centered on a young mouse determined to win a big race to save her family's beloved theme park-is serviceable, but utterly predictable. While the voice cast (featuring Gemma Arterton and Thomas Brodie-Sangster) brings warmth, and the visuals are colorful enough to entertain the under-7 crowd, the film lacks narrative weight, emotional complexity, or genuine humor. It functions more like an extended commercial than a story with heart. Still, for very young viewers, it offers a safe, cheerful environment to explore themes of determination and teamwork. This is not a film to remember, but a distraction that serves its purpose for a narrow age range. Best suited for early childhood screenings, family afternoons, or first cinematic experiences-when the goal is comfort, not catharsis.

"Edda" lives and works on her father's struggling fairground but has dreams of driving a Grand Prix car, however unlikely that may be. Meantime, with the challenge for the world title about to take place, the charismatic "Ed" is poised to win his fifth consecutive championship and cement his place in the history books. Determined to sneak a look at his car, "Edda" gets into his garage and decides to take it for a spin. He catches her but not before she has got behind the wheel and hit the streets of Paris - quite literally! With him now sporting a dislocated arm, "Edda" suggests that she don his helmet and pretend to be him for the forthcoming races. It's a risky wheeze, but it might just work - except, well there appears to be something nefarious afoot and when things begin to go slip, sliding away amidst a sea of green gunge it looks like "Edda" has her work cut out to thwart someone's devious plans and to keep "Ed" convinced that it isn't actually her who is threatening his chances. It's quite a basic, but still a quickly paced and enjoyable animation with loads of action very much in the "Wacky Races" vein with plenty of super-stunts, a little bit of menace and even a soupçon of romance as these red leather critters hurl themselves around the streets where there's even some room for action for a big red London bus. It's got the usual tones of inter-reliance and team spirit to keep it whizzing along and I quite enjoyed it.

This is honestly a very conflicting movie. Grand Prix of Europe is a massive mixed bag where it's hard to determine if the experience of watching this is worth it or not.

There are some things that it does very well like some fun racing scenes, solid animation and some nice voice acting, but because of the weak script that delivers a generic story, bad comedy and a cast of at best tolerable characters, it's honestly debatable if the film could be considered an okay sports film to celebrate the Europa-Park's 50th annyversary or just be a forgettable kids distractor.

If you are a fan of the Europa-Park, maybe this is worth seeing for yourself to check if you may like this more than I do, but I don't think you'll miss out on this if you choose to pass on this one.

At the most, my recommendation is that this is worth having in the background, where you can look up when some cool action happens, then go back to your own thing afterwards.

Such a cute movie! There's a little something for everyone - the car race for the action, the mice's personal journey and the old amusement park for a more sentimental touch, and a bit of silliness for some laughs.

We went to see it with kids of different ages and interests, and everyone found something to enjoy.

Our favorite character was probably Edda, but some of the side characters were great too - we especially loved Maria the seer and Magnus the bear.

The way they showed the countries in the race was also really nice: simple, representative, fun and just right for kids.

There's nothing pretentious or boring here - just a good old-fashioned family movie, like the ones we used to have.

Highly recommended!

This movie was such a nice surprise!

In a time full of disappointing, lukewarm animated films, it was great to see my kids get excited about a story again. It manages to feel both modern and old-school at the same time.

For example, I loved how the mouse girl's role was inspiring, yet felt totally natural - the idea that a girl can achieve just as much as a boy is obvious and implicit (as it should be), without feeling forced or overhyped.

The animation is high-quality, which is great, but they also invested in a quality story, which is not a given. All in all, a really lovely family movie: lively, exciting, and the kind you'd happily rewatch on the couch on a family movie night!