The 7th Dwarf

Princess Rose's 18th birthday was supposed to be a day of great joy. Because once she comes of age, a dark curse that was once placed on her by the nasty ice fairy Dellamorta will fall off of her. All she has to do is make sure she doesn't hurt herself on a sharp object before midnight. It's no wonder that the king is doing everything in his power to ensure that this day will also end without his beloved Rose falling victim to the curse after all. But Dellamorta still has an evil ace up her sleeve. And indeed, her curse becomes reality and the entire castle of Fantabularasa falls into a 100-year deep sleep. The whole castle? No: the seven dwarves Bubi, Cooky, Sunny, Speedy, Tschakko, Ralfie and Cloudy barely escape the spell, which is triggered by a mishap of Bubi. To make amends, the 7 dwarfs set out to save the princess and the rest of the castle's inhabitants. But to do so, they must not only find Rose's true love and bring her into the castle. They must also escape the attacks of Dellamorta. And she has a dragon to do battle with the seven little heroes, after all.

The 7th Dwarf has to be one of the most unnecessary movies of the year. That's not to say it's the worst movie. Not that by any means, but there will probably be very few viewers who were really waiting for this piece of machination. The two Seven Dwarfs films starring Otto Waalkes and co. were so successful not because they were particularly good movies, but because the comedians who acted alongside the ever-popular Otto were hugely popular in the mid-2000s. But it's not just that the success of Martin Schneider, Ralf Schmitz and co. seems to have passed its zenith by now. The decision to replace them with not necessarily recognizable animated versions of themselves is likely to dwindle the interest of even extremely diehard fans of the comedians to a minimum.

This wouldn't be a bad thing if the film could otherwise score with charm, wit and a little originality. But again, The 7th Dwarf just fails to convince. Some characters are visually absolutely brazenly cribbed from Disney films like Rapunzel, many gags are stolen from Sherk and Co. or simply recycled from the two real films. And the fact that only another version of Sleeping Beauty was chosen for the main plot is also only a limited testament to the ingenuity of the makers. Sure, there are some nice moments and decent gags. But the necessary spark just doesn't want to jump over. Because everything seems somehow familiar and sometimes very obviously stolen, is here with the audience more than a tired smile simply not in it.

Perhaps six years ago, The 7th Dwarf could still generate some audience interest. But eight years after the last Dwarfs movie, it would have taken a lot more than this arguably uninspired animated feature to really generate widespread enthusiasm. The animation team did a good to very good job and there are a lot of scenes in which especially younger viewers will have fun. And it shouldn't be denied that the people involved put a lot of heart and soul into the production and had fun with it. But this doesn't make the fairy tale really good either. If there are actually viewers who were such big fans of the two live-action films that they are still happy about animated versions of the pointy-hat heroes and are therefore not bothered by the complete lack of any originality, they will certainly not be bothered by the criticisms listed here and will spend an amusing time in the cinema. But those who are hoping for a charming and really funny animated adventure will definitely leave the cinema disappointed and bored. Therefore: only for small Zipfelmützen fans between 5 and 8 or extremely loyal Otto followers definitely still worth seeing!

An article by Frankfurt-Tipp