It's hard to say what it is exactly what makes "Het woeden der gehele wereld" such a complete failure, due to the fact that it does so very many different things wrong.
The Dutch movie industry has quite a good reputation when it comes down to WW II productions. They never are really big or spectacular but always more humble and realistic with its story and emotions. Basically this movie also had everything in it to become just like any other good Dutch WW II-production. Yet the execution of it all is terribly lacking, in basically every department.
The story is based on a novel written by Maarten 't Hart. It feels as if they went through the book page by page and said lets shoot this page, let's forget about that one, lets shoot this one as well and skip that one! There really isn't a good flow to the story and the sequences just really don't blend in well with each other. The movie is filled with lots of loose sequences and it overall makes the movie feel very disjointed. Because of this you just really don't care about the story or whatever happens in it and the movie even tends to get a bit ridicules to watch at times due to this.
The movie also really feels like a rush job. Who knows, had they had given this movie and crew a few extra months, this movie might had perhaps been a much better one to watch. Guess they had to work with a tight schedule though due to the already quite high budget, for Dutch movie standards. The acting, the story, the directing, the post-production all feels terribly lacking because of this.
The movie also really features some horrible dialog, that often is being unintentionally funny. Not sure what they tried to achieve with it. Perhaps they thought that the old fashioned way of speech would provide the movie with a more authentic feeling? The actors also really don't seem to know how to handle it at times.
The movie is filled with some big name Dutch actors, also often in quite small roles but none of them really impress in the movie, with the exception perhaps of Frank Lammers and Joost Prinsen, who are a surprisingly good and fun cop-duo. I wish they had more moments together, for the truly uplifted the movie a bit when they entered the screen.
The overall production is just very poor. Sure, it's all quite acceptable enough looking in terms of its historic setting and costumes but the directing makes this movie just such a mess to watch. The production is really poor not just in terms of its directing but also with its editing, sound and musical score just to mention a few things. The music really doesn't seem to fit the movie its sequences and it seems to me like the musical score got completed before the movie even finished shooting. It just doesn't ever go together very well, which again, makes this movie really look and feel like a rushed done one.
A complete failure, at basically every department.
3/10
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