Tabaluga

Heaven knows, why they would buy this picture in the first place. It's based on a german book series and it's musical adaptions, that have been touring germany since 1993, even going so far to hire a few of the cast, like Heinz Hoenig, who played Arktos (the villain) since 2003, and Rufus Beck, who voices the fatherly mentor character, here a Raven, in the musicals a character called "Der Magier" (the Magician). But back to the review. Why are the English distributors at fault? Because firstly , they wanted to trick parents into thinking that this was Disney's Frozen apparently. And how? They changed the main Character from Tabaluga (the dragon), to his love interest, who was the daughter of Arktos in the books. Secondly, the English dub is just horrible, im guessing that it was done in Canada, which is like the center of English voice dubbing. Dear citizens of America, Canada, the UK and other. If theres one thing you absolutely mess up every time (except for anime) is dubbing foreign movies and series. And for those who were expecting Pixar level animation, we don't do that here, Germany and animation is another whole subject, but in short: we aren't very good at it. The songs, which were written by german Rock Icon Peter Maffay and childrens entertainer Rolf Zuckowski, aren't all originally written for this movie but come from the books, where they are arranged much better, and don't sound so computery. To conclude, this movie only works, if you're german and grew up with Tabaluga.

Should children, or teens, or adults be exposed to fantasy good vs. bad (unfortunately for young ones - a snowman) where good triumphs & evil bad is vanquished in some way? Well, it's been that way forever (at least since humans started telling tales in caves). So no surprise there. My low rating is due to the animation & voicing. Animation wasn't the worst nor was it amongst the best. Had some 3-D, but in mostly a single moving character with layered painted looking backdrops that were static (not moving). And both, central characters & background, lacked detail. Voicing was too human like. Characters were too stereotypical cute - dragon looked like a green puppy; princess looked like most female animé: thin, attractive, big eyes, long light hair, white, and very "Frozen" like. German & Chinese animators should catch up w/their neighbors.

But man what's with the children nowadays? I saw the trailer and there was absolutey nothing terrifying in this movie.

Raise children properly and not affraid of the litteelest things...

The kid (5 year old, hasn't seen more than five feature length movies in her life), liked it well enough, so that's good enough I guess? Everything is great if you experience it for the first time or something? Mission accomplished movie.

1 star for that, one for the world itself even if there could have been done more with it, and another because while rehashed, the messages are at least timeless and good.

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As for the movie being frightening. While my kid wasn't, so what? Kids need to be frightened sometimes. It's a good learning experience and if anything a plus. Nightmares or no nightmares. If your kid is frightened by this, talk about it. It'll be fine soon enough.

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Now. I like kids movies. if there's anything good in them. Be it jokes for the adults, charm, great animation, creativity, or even just plain goofy fun.

There's nothing, NOTHING, suprising, funny or original in this movie. Clichee characters, story, jokes, everything. To the last detail, everything this movie has, you have seen somewhere else, just better. It's almost funny to remember the movies this one plucked its stereotypical beats from.

I'm not expecting Pixar quality in the animation department from a mediocre budget German production, but I *do* expect a certain amount of script quality or some fresh ideas, wether it's a movie for small kids or not. Wether it's an adaptation or not. Give me SOMETHING movie! It didn't. Nothing. This movie is completely devoid of any and all creativity. Which is sad to see. The property itself is a great thing for kids, sad they didn't do much with it.

Maybe I'm jaded and seen to many movies.

As a final sidenote, this movie is based on a weird rockmusical thing for kids, so there are a few "rock"... ish songs in it. Fine. But did those absolutely need to be twice as loud as the rest of the movie, even the action scenes? Really obnoxious, bad mixing there.

Habe to agree to the other reviews here. We had to leave the cinema with two almost 5 year olds since they were afraid of the scary snowman. Still have nightmares after days...