The 7th Dwarf (2014)

Purely Joyful Movie!

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

I had no idea what to expect when going into the film. Was I going to get a completely awful and painful experience? Would it be a timeless and little-known treasure? Would it be so hilariously bad that I'd get a good laugh out of it?In the end, though I did laugh at some of the poorer voice acting and some of the cheesiness, the movie was mostly a mixed bag. With each new scene, I had no clue what I was going to get. There were plenty of surprises; some good, some bad. Let me start with my main complaints: Although each dwarf had a personality, as did the villain Dellamorta, but Princess Rose and Jack had absolutely nothing. They felt like plastic action figures that the director was controlling in the background, and Snow White was completely pointless to the plot. The voice acting also got pretty bad at points, especially with Jack. I laughed quite a lot whenever I heard him speak, regardless of what he actually said. Everything about his voice just seemed so off, so uncaring, that I had to giggle. The pacing was also very off, nothing really flowed properly. At first, I thought this would be an adventure film, but eventually it turned out that it would take over half an hour just for the curse to be put into place, followed by another ten minutes of planning for the trip, and then suddenly the dwarfs are right outside Dellamorta's castle. The part with the suicidal tap-dancing dragon also felt like it came out of nowhere. I will say, however, that this part did give Bobo some nice character development.And my last complaint was the music. It was atrocious. The final song was forgettable, but passable, but other than that, just no. The first song is literally about making a cake, that later gets destroyed, and has no real bearing on the plot. Sitting through that song was pain enough, but having it turn out to be a pointless musical outburst really made me angry. Then there was the rip-off of High-ho it's off to work we go that the dwarfs were constantly singing, and every time it came on I had to turn the volume off. It was that annoying. I will say that the villain's song gave her a reason to hate the king, even if it was an exposition song and it wasn't a good one at that.Now for the good things. I think that having Sleeping Beauty/Rose wear a suit of armor all her life was a very creative and interesting change to the story. The castle covering itself in ice was also a very interesting interpretation on the curse. Although the movie was poorly paced, Bobo and the dragon Bernie did have decent character arcs and the rest of the dwarfs at least had a little character. The animation was nothing to write home about, but there was nothing too poor about it as long as the object being animated wasn't in a liquid state. (Seriously, any liquid in this movie looked awful) But despite a few animation hiccups, the characters were all well designed, and I will give the film props for having Rose and Jack already be in love before the curse was put into effect.Overall, there were a lot of original and interesting ideas and decent animation. If the story would have been better paced with less exposition and more well-rounded characters, the movie could have been something I might have even enjoyed. However, I do not regret watching it, and there is nothing bad in it for kids, so in the end The Seventh Dwarf is a good movie for the younger audiences it is directed at. 4/10

No relation to Seventh Son obviously, even though the dwarf probably is someones son too. But apart from that unnecessary comparison what do we have here? It's a sort of sequel to a German series about the seven dwarfs and Snow White and other fairy tale characters. The other two movies that were made were shot with real actors, this one is animated (not very well done by the way).If you have a child that is under 5, the movie might work on that kid. Do not try to show it to anyone older. Unless they are much older and like the actors who speak the roles. Some known German actors behind the dwarfs here. Maybe it's fun to know the voice to the dwarf you see on screen. Other than that there is too much of the "Don't do this because something bad will happen", just for people to do "it" and something "bad" to happen. It's primitive on a level that should not be able to entertain you ...

This review is about the English version.It all started so-so, but 20 minutes later I realised I was hooked by its charm. I watched the rest in a better spirit and in a forgiving mood. There is just enough in The 7th Dwarf to soften up an old fart like me. The animation is not the best out there, but the graphic design is very cute. The songs have rather poor lyrics, but they've got enough heart and soul to make up for it. The humour, very gentle, did make me laugh at times. The pace is perfect, not rushing into the common frenzy plaguing the genre.The high points for me are Burny the dragon, and Nina Hagen voicing the villainess. The ice monster also looks pretty cool; I wonder if it would successfully scare a child. Ah, and in the end credits, there is a section for the "Children born during this Production." I told you this film was cute.

"Der 7bte Zwerg" is loosely connected to the "Snow White" "and Sleeping Beauty" fairy tales. It follows two live action movies with some of Germany's comedy elite (German comedy legend Otto Waalkes and 6 others) playing the seven dwarfs. While I actually kinda enjoyed these two films, unfortunately this animated movie here did not do too much for me. The animation is solid and it was a nice idea to make the dwarfs look like the actors from the previous 2 films, especially as these were also back to lend them their voices again. However, the story just felt too weak for me overall. The writing came (among others, including prolific actor (and also one of the dwarfs) Boris Aljinovic who directed his very first movie here) from Bernd Eilert again, who was also in charge of writing the two live action movies. One of the emotional highlights was probably when the dwarfs became friends with the depressive dragon, but it did not impact me at all, which makes me come to the conclusion that this is really one for smaller children. I would say that the side plots and minor references were frequently more interesting and fun to watch than the core story. I enjoyed seeing all the fairytale references early on at the 18th birthday party or how they displayed Snow White and Sleeping Beauty as sort of BFFs in a modern way.The trip to the evil queen and everything they went through there (and also the way they returned and came out right at the castle) seemed randomly rushed in and they could have done so much more than that quality-wise. Female rock singer Nina Hagen voices the evil queen (she also appeared in the other dwarf films already), but while her voice has huge recognition value and fits evil characters nicely, it always seems the same to me. Sadly, I cannot really recommend this movie. However, you should actually watch the live action dwarf movies first and then decide for yourself, if you are interested in this one as well. Maybe you can appreciate it more than I did. In general, I would suggest watching one of the many German children's book live action adaptations that come out these days. Many of them are real quality, but for some reason German animation movies are still several steps behind in terms of quality.