Wickie und die starken Männer (2009) User Reviews

Entertaining and funny rendition based on the classic series of the 70s

[ma-cortes · 6/10 · 13 December 2010]

Amusing movie based on the successful German-Austrian cartoon series , here are correctly adapted on real images . Long ago, in a small Viking Village called Flake , a little boy named Wickie (Jonas Hammerle) lives a happy life with his parents . His daddy, Halvar (Waldemar Kobus), is the chief of the Vikings, and would have liked a son a little more valiant and less fearful . So, he and his bunch take Wickie along on their voyages to give him the experience he'll need to be an actual Viking. He usually accompanies his dad, and his warriors on their adventures and often is the young who uses his wit and instincts to help the friends in their times of need .Yet, somehow tribe's children end up trapped or hopelessly stuck somewhere and kidnapped by the nasty Sven (Gunther Kauffmann) and it's up to Wickie alone to help them out with his flashes of wit . Our friends Halvar , Snorre (Christian Koch) , Tjore , Urobe go out to rescue them on their ships , the Viking Drakkar, and Vickie aboard as stowaway.

This agreeable film contains amusing adventures , humor , emotion and is pretty entertaining . Not only did the story convey us to great and funny adventures, it also showed how to solve problems without the use of force. A likable Vickie , he is an ordinary viking boy, he is also not very strong but with his flashes of intelligence saves the day , helping the crew to resolve the numerous problems they suffer . The motion picture is well and originally directed by Michael Bully Herbig . He is an expert on parody based on known characters such as Karl May's ¨Winnitou¨ in the film titled ¨manitou's shoes (2001¨), the second feature movie he directed , became the most successful movie in Germany and Austria ever and ¨Sissi¨ in ¨Lissi and the Wild Emperor¨ and of course ¨Vickie¨ in this enjoyable film ¨ Vickie the Viking ¨ . Rating : 6,5 . Acceptable adventures film appointed for children and adolescents and ,of course, for vintage series fonds . Well worth seeing .

Decent entertainment

[dukeluke-1 · 7/10 · 2 October 2009]

First of all I have to say that I never was a big fan of the original TV-series, but the main reason for this is the fact that I was born in the mid 80's and thus my cartoon heroes were those who came after Wickie. Thus I went into the movie without any expectations and ended up being pleasantly surprised.

The story is neither overly inventive nor epic, but there's always enough happening to keep the viewer interested.

The movie had plenty of fun moments, I couldn't help noticing that it's mostly targeted at the younger generation but there are also a few mature references. Altogether anyone who has a good relationship with their inner child should have a few good laughs throughout the playtime.

The cast is mostly unknown (at least to me since I don't watch that many German productions) but excellent. Almost every character has a striking resemblance to his or her cartoon counterpart and the acting is decent.

Yet again I have to bow in front of Bully Herbig when it comes to production value. The movie looks and sounds fantastic, if it had been a high-budget Hollywood production there probably wouldn't have been too much of a difference to the product at hand (Apart from the addition of some overdone special FX). The music composer Ralf Wengenmayr did an excellent job of working the original melodies into the score as well as adding some new ones which really matched the movie's mood.

Most people, Wickie fan or not, should enjoy it.

Fun kid's movie

[prgeyer · 7/10 · 26 August 2010]

I have never seen the original cartoon version of Wickie, so I had no idea what to expect when I bought this movie for my 4 year old daughter. From the first time watching it, she loved it. The great thing is, my wife and I loved it too. As other reviewers have said, the plot is not the strongest part of this film. But the cast is excellent, especially Guenther Kaufmann as a deliciously evil and over the top Sven, and the production is beautiful. Perhaps the highest praise a film can earn, my daughter forced my father-in-law, who speaks no German whatsoever and is impatient with things that he doesn't like at the best of times, to watch Wickie. Not only did he not complain, but when we were all called to dinner, he wanted to stay to watch the rest of the film. High praise indeed! I have heard rumors that they're filming a sequel. We sure hope so. My daughter is eager to follow more of Wickie's adventures.

Definitely not for kids

[Thom-Peters · 1/10 · 27 September 2011]

Compared to this movie Harry Potter, Asterix and classical fairy tales look very down to earth. They claim that magic exists and that if you know how to use it you can actually work miracles. Young Wickie's only power is his alleged cleverness. But his solutions just ignore the laws of physics and logic. And that's not clever at all.

At one point the ship of Wickie's Vikings has to catch up with another one that's quite ahead of them. A map illustrates the situation: Wickie's ship is on the right side of an island, both ships are heading for a place on the left side. Wickie sees that the route across the island is only a third of the route around it and gets the genius idea to just cross it - with their ship. Harry Potter would have figured something out and wiggled his wand, but Wickie's men really have to pull the big viking ship for miles and miles over land. Later on he uses some minuscule kites flying next to the majestic big sail of their ship to get it up into the air. Cleverness never looked that stupid.

The whole point of the Wickie character is that he's a small and weak Viking boy who is still of great value to his community because his ideas are based on the general knowledge of our times and therefore are way ahead of his. In this movie he's got only wacky ideas that even an eight year old should recognize as humbug. Still his inanities gain him the admiration of the elders.

All grown-up vikings are depicted as idiots, all kinds of idiots: the vain idiot, the bragging idiot, the cowardly idiot, the "No, I'm not stolen from the Asterix comics"-troubadour idiot. The kids and the women are basically alright, but the men are all half-wits. Would you really consider to expose your children to such hateful nonsense? A good comedy will lift you up, this annoying movie is set to dumb people down. If you are intellectually insecure enough to need to laugh about stupid people, you will like this movie because it doesn't feature anything else, but please don't expose innocent children to this junk.

I didn't read the "Wickie" books from the 60ies or watched the 70ies TV-show, but it would really surprise me if they'd be even slightly as heart- and witless as this Michael 'Bully' Herbig movie. Yes, that's the director's official nickname. Right in the beginning Wickie is forced by a big strong grown-up bully to engage himself in a duel of physical strengths designed to humiliate him in front of the whole village. Evil. Who's that bully? Wickie's father. Now that's really evil! This is definitely not a family movie.

Wickie, but not witty

[Horst_In_Translation · 4/10 · 29 January 2015]

I remember very well when there was a casting show for the child actor to play Wickie which ran several weeks and was put into effect by Michael Herbig, one of Germany's most famous comedians ("Bullyparade") and also the writer and director of this movie. He also plays a small role as a Spanish narrator, which really should have been left out. It's neither funny, nor does it add a lot to the film. This can be said about most of the movie. There are many much better children's book adaptations out there and the only scene I kinda liked was the battle between Wickie and his dad with the stone carrying sequence early on.

The dad reminded me a bit of Majestix from the Asterix movies, especially when looking at how he communicates with his wife. Wickie, however, is not a rough brutal viking as they want him to be. He works much more with his mind than with his non-existing biceps. The plot is that all the viking children are abducted by another viking tribe (it is not shown how that happens, probably as it's a kids film and they may have gotten scared) and so Wickie, who managed to flee, and his clan need to get them back. There are actually some interesting names cast as villains. if you are slightly familiar with German cinema, you may recognize the late Günther Kaufmann (worked a lot with Fassbinder), Christoph Maria Herbst, Herbert Feuerstein or Jürgen Vogel. Herbig has worked a lot with Herbst in the past, but his "Bullyparade" colleagues Tramitz and Kavanian are not around this time.

All in all this movie is a fairly weak comic book adaptation. The sequel which came out not much later is slightly better thanks to the introduction of an interesting new character, but not by much. With all these great children's books' adaptations out there currently, I cannot recommend to watch this one. There's many better choices and I am somehow surprised to see this was the most successful German movie at the box office from 2009, back in the year of "Avatar". The humor was just really weak here. One example was the underwater sequence, which did almost nothing for me comedy-wise. Apart from that, I assume the dramatic highlight should be the father/son-relationship, but on an emotional level it did not strike me either, even if the song about that issue was nice, but also much more comedy-like than dramatic. What was truly bad, was the version of the Hey Wickie theme song they included here. All in all, not recommended.

Totally fantastic for the Golf Generation

[caipirina7 · 8/10 · 11 January 2010]

Thursday 17:10 .. if your mom made a dentist appointment at that time, you had all the reason to hate her, it was Wickie time !!!

I believe that for those who grew up like Bully in the early 70ies in Germany will be extremely pleased with this movie as I was. I have not watched the animated Wickie since I was a kid and I had no idea that there was a new version in the making until I saw it on the menu of an LH flight back from Tokyo .. talk about the odds as this was (according to wiki) the first cooperation of ZDF - ORF and some Japanese channel ... (and I am still talking about the animated show from 1972 -74)

As to the movie, it just triggered all the .. errr... triggers .. in me .. the production value was fantastic (as Bully had showcased before, good and careful use of FX is not Hollywood alone territory) ... the story is nothing to write home about ... but it works extremely well .. it kept me focused for the whole time and made me wish for more ... The characters were very well cast. The partial musical cues from the old TV show nearly brought me to tears.

Now, there might be a problem ... I have NO idea how today's kids might like this, or even young parents who grew up in the 80ies and for them Wickie was just one of many many offerings on the recently established cable channels ...

As much as I wish for a sequel, unless they shot one secretly back to back .. the kids playing Wickie and his GF will be too old to reprise the roles.

Overall ... A movie very well done, but I think it depends on what your former relation is with this little Vicking .. and how much you love it.

Worth your while, give it a(nother) shot, cute and entertaining

[supermaggie · 10/10 · 4 June 2021]

I am surprised by the many poor reviews. On the other hand, the movie did not get me the first time I watched it, either. Maybe it is because the marketing raised the wrong expectancies? Or people expected something like Manitou's shoe or the equally hilarious Dreamship surprise, I guess this is what kept me from completely getting the Wickie movie the first time. And I was around when the animated show was on TV, I did watch it sporadically, but I was not a superfan. Yes, it is not a hilarious comedy like the huge Bully hits, sure, it is a children's movie. Yet, I found it very entertaining and likable, once I had forgotten all the associations and expectancies and just watched the movie for what it is: a cute adventure story with wonderful, diverse characters (a character for everybody to like/identify with), a great message for kids (yes, a lot of Wickie's plans would not work, but this is not the point/this does not make him not clever. The point is, that it encourages kids to get into science, use their heads, not define themselves by physical strength alone, not define smart kids/people as lame Nerds, and in addition there is the message, that females are strong and clever, too, in particular Ylva, who perfectly directs her husband into the right directions). And en passent Bully succeeds to show how real diversity is established in a natural, unobtrusive way - and this in a movie about Vikings, a pretty little diverse looking group. And let's not forget the funny action. If you enjoyed Pirates of the Carribbean I can only recommend you to give Bully's Wickie a shot. And for the ones who liked it: watch the DVD features with the Making of where Bully tells funny details about the roles, actors and the shooting process. There is even a music video featuring Bully and Sasha ('If you believe in love tonight', Dick Brave, etc.). And if you already saw it and were disappointed: give it a second shot, you will see it with different eyes and not regret it.