Playmobil, le Film

I sat down to watch the 2019 animated "Playmobil: The Movie" with my son. I hadn't even heard about this movie prior to stumbling upon it. And since I grew up playing with Playmobil, and my son now does so as well, of course we sat down together to watch this movie.

The movie is a little bit slow to start, but once the main characters become changed into Playmobil things brighten up and the movie takes a turn for the better.

First I will say that the storyline was pretty good. Sure, this was a children's movie first and foremost, but it actually had enough contents to it so that I, as an adult, actually always enjoyed the movie.

The CGI was just spectacular, and it was such a blast to watch Playmobil brought to life on the screen in this manner. There is an abundance of details in many scenes, and you'll probably not even notice half of them. My son, for example, he didn't even notice the Ghostbusters vehicle on the express way. So there is a lot to take in, and I believe that fact alone actually makes this movie well worth watching a second time. The first time is for the storyline, whereas the second is to take in all the details.

There is a good feeling to the storyline, and the movie is definitely enjoyable. Not only because of the good CGI and the storyline, but also because of the characters. There was a good amount of nicely fleshed out characters throughout the course of the movie. And while this is an animated CGI movie, having a good and talented cast for the voice acting is a must. And they definitely had that for "Playmobil: The Movie".

It was nice to see Playmobil put in a chip on the animated movie market with this movie, and it was a much needed breath of fresh air from all the Lego movies. Not that there is anything wrong with Lego, not at all, but variety and a change of scenery makes a great change.

"Playmobil: The Movie" is well worth sitting down to watch, and I am rating it a six out of ten stars.

If you read the reviews, you could get the impression that the main flaw of the Playmobil movie is the fact that it's not the Lego movies. Yes, thank you, we know that.

This movie does NOT try to be a clone of the Lego movies. Strangely, most reviews I have read seem to have a problem with that. The Playmobil movie is not full of meta jokes or references to other movies. The movie does not make fun of the quirks of old Playmobil sets. It's not self-aware. The characters don't know that they are toys. The fairy godmother behaves exactly like a fairy godmother; she's not behaving oddly or making sarcastic jokes. If you are expecting all those things, you are simply in the wrong movie.

The Playmobil movie is exclusively targeting children, not adolescents or adults. From this point of view, it's a solid movie. The 3D animation looks a bit outdated but it brings very well the look and feel of the Playmobil toys to the big screen. The story is okay but I think it would have been better to spend more time on the characters instead of rushing through the different sceneries. There are locations that don't contribute anything to the story (e.g. the scene with the lava and the dinosaurs on the road), while potentially interesting characters like the fairy only have a short appearance. But again, that's me as an adult overanalyzing a children movie. Children will probably enjoy to see all their favourite Playmobil themes.

The film is very formulaic and essentially one big advert for playmobil. Despite that I did just about enjoy it given it had just about enough laughs and a crazy enough storyline to keep me involved as an adult. I imagine young kids would enjoy it even more also. Not the worst kids film you'll see although certainly not the best your kids will enjoy it and you won't completely want to tear your hair out so worth a family trip out on a rainy day.

Obviously you are going to compare this to the Lego movies and yes it very similar but it is still a fun film. It has a good story and the live action framing at the beginning and end of the film serves it well. in-fact the framing does point the way to a potential sequel that could flip the story round. I do have one negative thing to say, the songs do derail the film in places but fortunately the film quickly recovers so no harm done.

Was surprised when I saw the crazy low critics score, its really not too bad. As a parent I have had to endure so many bad childrens movies and I must say this was quite entertaining at times. I would say even more entertaining than lego movie 2.