An eight-year-old German girl with ponytails who robs a bank and a sea monster who dreams of a Vespa. The best children’s films that are released in the run-up to Easter are the films with the most absurd plots.
Lucy goes gangsta follows Lucy: the dream child of two ice cream parlor owners. Pure goodness: when she finds 50 euros, she puts up posters to find the owner. People often say she is ‘too good for the world’. That’s what she starts to believe when the salon’s ice machine breaks down and her parents can’t afford the repairs. Life can be that unfair. She decides to rob a bank, because “gangsters always get what they want,” according to her mafioso uncle. To do this, she has to undergo gangster training with Tristan, the gum-chewing juvenile delinquent in her class.
The film has an infectious children’s logic. Silly adults make the world unnecessarily complex. Children always have a creative plan ready to prank them. Sometimes it feels a bit easy: young viewers will say ‘poop!’ for weeks after watching. say through the abundance of poop and pee jokes. But the film also exudes the creativity of children who have not yet learned to think ‘in the box’. And the theme is daring. What is good and evil? Can Lucy become evil if she does it for ‘good’ reasons?
Also animated film Luca is refreshingly creative, about an Italian sea monster with an obsession with people. Luca lives in the sea off the Italian Riviera. Together with his friend Roberto he visits ‘the upper world’. They emerge as connoisseurs of human things; broken bells and such. And they dream of a Vespa: “The most beautiful thing humanity has ever made.” But Luca’s parents are strict and afraid of the murderous human. To escape their wrath, Luca flees to a village on the coast. But he must not get wet: then he will turn into a sea monster again.
A funny design, which appears in the distance The little Mermaid reminiscent, but with an extremely atmospheric setting. Children can dream away at the Italian Flower Coast filled with ice cream, pasta, Vespas; parents fantasize about a sun holiday. That makes up for the weak plot of Luca. In the film, Luca has to win a triathlon on land for his Vespa and his human girlfriend. Does he? Then he proves to his parents that they can let him go. And people will realize: ‘We’re actually not that different!’ It seems very familiar: Luca adds little.
Pandas and Panthers
Also Kung Fu Panda 4 feels very familiar, but unfortunately this film from Dreamworks Animation is not sunny enough to make up for that.
The Kung Fu Pandafilms revolve around Po, a fat, good-natured panda who becomes a Kung Fu hero in a magical Asian world full of mysterious enemies and magic. Major stars such as Jack Black, Angelina Jolie, Lucy Liu and Jackie Chan provided the voices. In Kung Fu Panda 4 only Jack Black remains, the other stars’ beloved characters are “on other adventures”. And they brought the magic with them.
The story: Panda Po struggles with his new role as spiritual leader of the Valley of Peace. When a new enemy appears, he moves quickly – anything to escape concocting Confucian life spells. This time the threat is: The Chamelion (Viola Davis). A chameleon that can transform into any previous enemy of Po. It feels like a trick: warm up some beloved villains, so viewers at least get a kick out of being recognizable.
Po sets off with a kleptomaniac fox, fights with crooks, makes tireless jokes about his weight and defeats the final boss. It looks beautiful. But the jokes and fights feel like deleted scenes from previous films. And the plot sometimes seems made up on the spot.
The American feature film Autumn and the Black Jaguar is also ‘new text on a well-known melody’. Fifteen-year-old Autumn lived in the Amazon as a young child and developed a special bond with a black jaguar. Her life among a stereotypical Amazonian tribe was a dream, until her mother was murdered by poachers and her father took her to America. Years later she returns, followed by her neurotic biology teacher.
These kinds of stories about the majestic animal world quickly become enchanting. And Autumn… feels like a pleasantly uncomplicated buzz at the beginning. But after an hour the plot bogs down in a seemingly endless flight through the jungle. You hope that jaguar will be made into a jacket as soon as possible. The satisfying ending comes too late, and too expected.
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