"Amundsen der Pinguin" or "Amundsen the Penguin" is a German television movie from 2003. I see the director is Stephen Manuel from Ireland and this is neither among his oldest nor most recent works. He also worked on the Harald Schmidt Show I see, a personal favorite of mine. The two writers Jacobs and Kern were really not particularly prolific back then and also aren't today, so with their lack of experience I still think they came up with a pretty good script. This film is pretty typical for films here from Germany from recent years/decades that made a bit of an impact or lets say are not totally forgotten and with that i mean films mostly for younger audiences. These indeed have always managed to get known names and at least mildly famous actors inside their cast list despite being for children. It almost seems as if these actors were really interested in appearing in such films, maybe because kids are not the toughest critics. Here the examples are Harald Krassnitzer who is perhaps most known for Tatort today, for a long time actually, but before that he was known as one of the Bergdoktors and there he took care of nature (in addition to patients) as well, even if in a completely different way than he does in this movie here. Maybe many people don't know the name, but they sure will remember the face. Then there is Claude-Oliver Rudolph. Do I need to say anything else than "Das Boot"? Well he is fairly famous still today in Germany more than 15 years after this film we have here and he is mostly cast for villain characters, so it is kinda fitting and not surprising he plays the main antagonist here. And yep, there is indeed Til Lindemann in this film. What a surprise! The Rammstein lead singer in an animal movie for children. That's why films never cease to amaze. I really wonder how it came to that casting decision. And if you take a look at his imdb list as an actor, then you will see mostly Rammstein music videos and the 2 or 3 other films, his character sounds like one who is basically in it for one brief scene as a bit of a cameo. But not so here. He has screen time on many occasions throughout the entire film. Never really for several minutes on one occasion, but it's the sum that counts and maybe also why you can call this his career-defining acting performance. And finally a few words on lead actress Lea Kurka. She appeared in the Oscar-winning "Nirgendwo in Afrika" before that and had a career for a few more years afterwards, but it seems that now that she has not acted for a decade approximately, she is out of the limelight and won't return into it. A bit of a pity as she does a fine job here. And there are other actors that are enjoying solid careers, but I will not go into detail on any of these anymore because I am not really familiar with them and I don't want to just repeat their body of work.
As for the story: This is the tale of a teenage girl and her relationship to a most gifted penguin. The film begins on two locations basically. We have the girl at her home and we have her uncle at the Pole where he meets the penguin while arguing with his colleague who is quite the brute and does not care about animal rights. When they find a penguin who has the talent to find stones (i.e. precious gems) for his nest and of course that makes the animal a wannted prey. So Krassnitzer's character (the uncle) takes the penguin with him to Cologne where they hide him from the bad guys. Well, somewhat hide him as the girl really wants her friends to see him. I should say "her" as we find out later on. So then most of the action takes place in Germany before eventually, it is all about the Antarctica again when they return the penguin to his home at the South Pole. This is also where the treasure finding component gets back in the story, even if I must say the way they actually do find a treasure à la Indiana Jones towards the end is more than just a bit ridiculous honestly. And there are more moments, the acting from smaller characters is also not always a success gently-speaking. But back towards the end. One of the film's messages is that real treasures can also mean something else if we look closely enough. Or that it is really obvious they do, even if we don't look too closely. Another aspect I quite liked here was that they were not scared of scenes and moments that other kids films sometimes worry about and avoid them to keep the film as harmless as it gets. There are two I would like to mention and these also refer to the polar ice. first scene would be when we have Rudolph shoot after Krassnitzer early on and actual shots are fired, even if nobody is injured. Second scene would be the eventual fate of Rudolph's character. No further details here, even if I clicked that I include spoilers. But yeah for me as an animal lover of course the penguin was the highlight, even if I must say he was not seen as often as you'd expect in a film that is named after him. But yeah making movies with animals, especially exotic animals, is never really easy, so if that means they really took care about the rules and regulations, then that is perfectly fine. There sure are moments when the film tries to be a bit too important and takes itself too seriously and honestly also it happened more than once that the movie felt extremely unrealistic and lets be honest here: These 90 minutes never could have happened in reality like that. But they don't need to. It was still a fun watch with a good message with moments that had me laugh occasionally, or at least smile. Like the pizza guy scene. Or the dog named penguin. Or the father handing out house arrest until the protagonist would be a grown-up. I think this really should be all now. I had moments when I was not entirely sure, but even if greatness is almost never reached, this still was a decent watch overall and I give it a thumbs-up. Especially worth seeing if you like penguins as much as I do!
As for the story: This is the tale of a teenage girl and her relationship to a most gifted penguin. The film begins on two locations basically. We have the girl at her home and we have her uncle at the Pole where he meets the penguin while arguing with his colleague who is quite the brute and does not care about animal rights. When they find a penguin who has the talent to find stones (i.e. precious gems) for his nest and of course that makes the animal a wannted prey. So Krassnitzer's character (the uncle) takes the penguin with him to Cologne where they hide him from the bad guys. Well, somewhat hide him as the girl really wants her friends to see him. I should say "her" as we find out later on. So then most of the action takes place in Germany before eventually, it is all about the Antarctica again when they return the penguin to his home at the South Pole. This is also where the treasure finding component gets back in the story, even if I must say the way they actually do find a treasure à la Indiana Jones towards the end is more than just a bit ridiculous honestly. And there are more moments, the acting from smaller characters is also not always a success gently-speaking. But back towards the end. One of the film's messages is that real treasures can also mean something else if we look closely enough. Or that it is really obvious they do, even if we don't look too closely. Another aspect I quite liked here was that they were not scared of scenes and moments that other kids films sometimes worry about and avoid them to keep the film as harmless as it gets. There are two I would like to mention and these also refer to the polar ice. first scene would be when we have Rudolph shoot after Krassnitzer early on and actual shots are fired, even if nobody is injured. Second scene would be the eventual fate of Rudolph's character. No further details here, even if I clicked that I include spoilers. But yeah for me as an animal lover of course the penguin was the highlight, even if I must say he was not seen as often as you'd expect in a film that is named after him. But yeah making movies with animals, especially exotic animals, is never really easy, so if that means they really took care about the rules and regulations, then that is perfectly fine. There sure are moments when the film tries to be a bit too important and takes itself too seriously and honestly also it happened more than once that the movie felt extremely unrealistic and lets be honest here: These 90 minutes never could have happened in reality like that. But they don't need to. It was still a fun watch with a good message with moments that had me laugh occasionally, or at least smile. Like the pizza guy scene. Or the dog named penguin. Or the father handing out house arrest until the protagonist would be a grown-up. I think this really should be all now. I had moments when I was not entirely sure, but even if greatness is almost never reached, this still was a decent watch overall and I give it a thumbs-up. Especially worth seeing if you like penguins as much as I do!
