Gnomes and Trolls: The Secret Chamber (2008)
Junior, a teenage gnome, wants nothing more than to invent gizmos and gadgets in his tree-house laboratory. But Junior's old school father, Jalle, the head gnome of the forest, would prefer his son follow in his footsteps and one day be in charge of his own forest. In spite of their differences, on the eve of the first winter storm Junior helps Jalle distribute food rations. Then disaster strikes.
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Instant Favorite.
A Major Disappointment
This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.
A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.
It's not one of those top fancy slick big budget movies where you have hundreds of millions in budget. If you are looking for a movie like this, then your best bet is to search for Pixar, Dreamworks or Blue Sky films.This is a low budget production from Swedish animation studio White Shark produced almost 10 years ago, bearing this in mind, you get what you expect.The story takes you to the magical Scandinavian world where evil trolls fight against the good gnomes. Trolls like to steal and destroy, gnomes loves to help and protect animals in the forest.Deep down in the forest lives evil troll king Fassa who conspire against the good gnomes with his evil son's Face and Slim. Their objective is the find the Gnome's food stash and steal it.The mail character Junior, a young gnome at the age of 87, dreams of inventing new gadgets to improve the life of animals, while his old school father want things to stay as they are.It's a feel good story line without the flat Hollywood jokes or the perfectly formatted movie script where you have break into act two on page 14 or pivot in the story 47 minutes into the film.The rating in my review would consist of six parts.Script, how it teaches children to do good and respect their parents 8/10 Original characters and backgrounds, given the budget and year of production: 6/10 Animation of the characters, given the budget and year of production: 5/10 How did my two children (3 and 8) react to this movie: 9/10 The children's willingness to watch the movie again: 7/10 Original story, how many movies with a similar theme or story did i see before: 7/10The animations and look takes some time to adjust to (given the dominance of extremely colorful children movies), but seeing the young baby girl ask for the movie over and over again on her Ipad, improves the overall rating.And the trolls are fun to watch...
It actually pains me to say that about 'Gnomes & Trolls: The Secret Chamber', as it does with any animated film or show that is considered mediocre or less by me. Am a big fan of animation and foreign/international animation fascinates me (particularly Russian and Japanese anime), but when eventually viewing it online it just didn't do anything for me.'Gnomes & Trolls: The Secret Chamber' sounded like it could have been a decent film at least if done right, but the execution was severely lacking in almost every area. While nowhere near among the worst animations ever made it is down with the most bizarre and messiest. Not being a prude, or at least not intending to be, am a child at heart despite being a young adult who judges every film taking target audience, the film's aim and what it is meant to be into account.The best thing about 'Gnomes & Trolls: The Secret Chamber' is the father/son relationship, that was the one element that had any heart or humanity and was beautifully and tenderly done.Some of the backgrounds have some nice detail and Peter Stormare has fun with his character. There is the odd bit of sporadic amusing humour but it's never hilarious.However, the animation is mostly not good at all. The backgrounds have moments, while others were simplistic and unfocused, but the colours are flat and murky and even worse the character designs are stiff and look ugly, almost unintentionally creepy.Particularly bad too was the storytelling, working only in the father/son relationship. The rest of it is very messy and muddled, almost borderline confusing with many things coming over as vague which gives it an overly hectic and sprawling all over the place vibe. It started off slow then got rushed and weird. The dialogue often sounds awkward and while love, friendship and family values are very important they have been executed with far more subtlety elsewhere than the patronising way 'Gnomes & Trolls: The Secret Chamber' did.None of the characters did anything for me, they were either bland, annoying, bizarre or pointless. You'd be hard pressed to find a weirder character of any animated film in the past decade than that hedgehog. Of the voice acting, Stormare is the only one who actually fits his character and sounds like he's making an effort. Talented prolific voice actress EG Daily is wasted.In summary, bizarre and messy but not without its redeeming merits. 3/10 Bethany Cox
Let me first write this, the movie does not match 150 million dollar blockbusters by the giants like Disney or 20th Century Fox, instead, its a cute family movie targeting the smaller children.I have watched it several times with my two daughters, on DVD. They enjoyed it as much as I did.We have watched it several times, and although it doesn't match the mega blockbusters, its still a cute and funny movie to enjoy with your kids.It also shows Nordic mythologies, teach kids values etc.The the young kid, Junior, who is our hero, tries new ways to do things right, and we really enjoyed how he tried to put things right.Enjoy!
The story is set in Scandinavian forest. Young junior struggles to go his own path, but his father wants him to follow his path. This is small White Shark's first CG movie, and I cannot say more than "Im impressed". CG movies has been until today only produced by large studios with 100million+ budget.This movie was produced for less than three (3?) million, and it still keeps the kids stuck to the screen for 75 minutes. My two children loved it, and my younger son wanted to see it again. It's not a movie for the teenage kid, but rather for a 5-7 year old. The music is fantastic, with a great atmosphere.If i would to put any negative, then the trolls are a bit scare for the younger kids, but that is of course a troll! The facials are also not the best and it feels sometimes as it was not put too much love about the expressions. But then again, with the small budget, i can understand this.Regarding the animations, its OK, not a Kung-Fu Panda or a Bolt, but then not worse than any other mid-budget movie. I would say the animations are like Ice Age or Valiant.Its a different movie and Im excited to see what this young studio will come up with in the future. A bit slow in the beginning, but definitely picks up the pace at the end.I give it 7 out of 10.