Knutsen & Ludvigsen og den fæle Rasputin

The creators of the first animation film about Knutsen&Ludvigsen has fallen for the temptation of remaking them into a half way copy of Toy Story mixed with some confusing kind of Grimmish fairytale, but sadly this way they lose too much of the essense from the original figures. Although the main characters are based on Gustav Lorentzen's fabulous drawings it's very easy to see the inspiration from Pixar. However some of the other characters are less credible and not fully developed. Still, the digital animation quality is basically good, but even if the main characters have kept their dialect and much of their original naive sillyness, much of the strange and childishly absurd humor gets lost in translation and feels a bit too strained as the story develops.

Of the two main charcters Knutsen's voice actor succeeds better than the actor behind Ludvigsen, which perhaps spoils some of the balance between the two tunnel residents. And why doesn't the badger speak the same dialect? The casting and development of the badgers voice is probably the least lucky. Stylistically the animation also lacks a bit of roughness and edge, and together with the musical production it's just too slick and lacks "hair". Somehow the nemisis character Rasputin seems like a compulsive invention who might have been fun early in the writing prosess, but he doesn't fit well into the universe, and he is basically annoying, lacking intention. This sadly also happens to some of the brilliant songs from Dolmen&Lorentzen, as they struggle to fit in to the plot, or vice versa. The film's funniest scene appears when we leave their tunnel home, with a simple gag that not even the original creators did think of. Apart from that, it's not as hilarious as it could have been.

Never knew a movie more requested and talked about among the kids in the family. Thankfully its sort of plump humor and silly storyline, it is still fun to watch it with them.