Abeltje

When I saw this movie I thought I was in my childhood. Slow but a nice movie for little children. Nice because I read the novel years ago. The movie is about a lift boy en fly through the air. High in the sky Abeltje discovers how to 'move' the elevator.

The movie is based on the well-known children's book 'Abeltje' by the (locally) famous Annie M.G. Schmidt. The book is, as in most cases, better than the movie, which has been altered to appeal to another generation. Enter the skateboard and an earring for Abeltje, a mother who runs a garage instead of a florist's, and the 'girl next door' who suddenly became a 'love interest' of sorts. These modernizations show again their age today, probably more so than the original story would have done. I would have preferred it if they had stuck a bit more to the original story, although it must be said that they added a fair bit of adventure, which isn't all bad.

It's a decent (though rather wacky) children's adventure story the young ones will surely enjoy, and some parents may like it too.

NB: Comments about so-called 'racism' are not only ridiculous, they are simply moronic. And false. Clearly, ALL adults in the story are portrayed as goofballs, as is the case in most children's books. That's probably how it should be. Let the kids laugh about those silly grown-ups. Most likely some left-wing extremists can't handle the fact that the movie (also) pokes fun at some Fidel-wannabe revolutionaries in the fictional (hello!) country 'Perugona'. So yeah, don't confuse 'Pravda' (what's in a name) with the truth. It's blatant propaganda, just like in the old days.

Enjoy your movie. :-)

"Nice movie for little children?" Allow me to totally disagree! I saw it for the first time today and I am still in shock! Thank god my children are too small to see it. Wat een racistische flauwekul! Here you have it, the whole standard racist lot: "good"Americans, "evil" Indians who kidnap children, always drunken Latin American "revolutionaries", Latin Americans who desperately "want" a Dutchman for their president and all whose sicknesses can be cured if they swallow mothballs! Not to mention that the evil Latin Americans (who have some Germans with "nazi accents" among them)force children into slavery (not a word of the West profiteering from child labour in Third World countries, that's too complicated for a little Dutch mind,of course!)... How much worse can it get?? If children in Holland grow up reading such books and watching such films,does it surprise anybody that they grow into Geert Wilderses?? Or that it is one of the most racist countries in Europe at present? The sad thing is that if I tell my Dutch friends about it, they won't even understand what I am talking about, as this is something they simply grew up with... I wanted to see this film because I liked "Minoes" so much. Apparently, Ms. Schmidt is not racist only when it comes to cats... Sad, really sad.

I think it's a great movie for the whole family to go. Too bad for you, because the movie only available in The Netherlands is. But soon it'll come too to France, Italy, Spain, Germany and the Scandinavian countries. If you live in Holland, you have to see this movie! It's not only a movie for kids, think older people will like this movie too.

There is a lot more about this movie than it being 'a slow and nice film for little children'. Besides having charming children in the protagonist roles, the support roles kick real ass. There is the garage-keeping mother of Abeltje, who doubles as an American mother who thinks to have found her lost son and turns Abeltje into a puppet. There are also many jokes on New York jet-set and Latin American revolutionaries which will be lost on 'little children', such as the German 'translator', played by a comedian who plays nazis with enthusiasm on national television and delivers his role acidly. And, of course, there is the singing teacher who teaches a bunch of mariachi's to sing a song that is recognizable as one of the greatest hits of the early 80's, with the writer of the song actually playing a mariachi, with moustache and all. Early on she teaches a gang of New York youths to sing and dance to writer Annie M.G. Schmidt's famous song De Twips, also a hit in 1966. Although little children will get some fun out of this movie, it seems primarily aimed at the Dutch moviegoer of way past the infant age. Camerawork is impeccable, FX's are convincing and the cutting pace is breathtaking. No wonder Dutch children's movies fly so high internationally these days.