Löwenzahn - Das Kinoabenteuer

The TV show Löwenzahn has been an important institution in the German TV landscape since 1981. Many children have been introduced to many interesting topics in an entertaining way by Peter Lustig until 2005 and by Guido Hammesfahr alias Fritz Fuchs since 2006. In 2005, to mark the 25th anniversary of the series, there was a feature-length version of Löwenzahn. But it is only now that the inhabitants of Bärstadt have also made it to the cinema.

Laila (Ruby O. Fee) has settled in for a quiet holiday with her aunt Yasemin (Sanam Afrashteh) in idyllic Bärstadt. But after only a few minutes, the girl is already in a great adventure. Because when she observes a dog being run over by a black limousine, she and Fritz Fuchs try to save the animal. But unfortunately, any help comes too late for the dog, but not for its puppies, which Laila wants to take care of lovingly. But then the black wagon turns up again and it turns out that it contains henchmen of Roman Zenkert (Dominique Horwitz), a supposed friend of Fritz, who are supposed to find out the hiding place of a legendary treasure from the inhabitant of the construction wagon. To force the animal lover to reveal his secret, they kidnap the puppies. But they haven't counted on Fritz getting more than energetic support from little Laila.

Dandelion - The Cinema Adventure was directed by Peter Timm, who has already directed successful children's films with movies such as Racing Pig Rudi Trunk and My Brother is a Dog. But even if his Dandelion film reveals some successful moments and both suspense and humor are definitely on a child-friendly level, the film as a whole is rather disappointing. After an admittedly visually very pretty beginning, the cinematic adventure quickly reveals that it almost completely lacks the charm of the series. The obtrusively used rock songs, which of course only purely coincidentally resemble the theme song of the Vorstadtkrokodile films, the bad guys Dominique Horwitz and Petra Schmidt-Schaller acting badly overdone, although also with obvious fun, or the somewhat lame MacGyver interludes by Fritz Fuchs seem altogether shockingly unimaginative and uninspired.

While the series imparts knowledge to children in a playful way, there is hardly anything of this in the film. Unrealistic action interludes and rather flat jokes at the expense of overweight adults, coupled with a bit of textbook morality aren't really the ingredients that made the series the cult that adults still remember fondly. Granted, kids - and after all, that's who this movie is made for - will hardly be bothered by these criticisms. They will certainly enjoy this film. But especially in view of the fact that many really nice children's films hardly find an audience, because they do not have such a powerful name as Dandelion - The cinema adventure, it is just a pity that the makers here have not made more than a rather soulless commercial product.

An article by Frankfurt-Tipp