Super-Charlie

The movie has nothing in common with the books and audiobooks about Super Charlie. My kid left early, sad and confused, because he didn't recognise the story at all.

Movie Charlie has a silly backstory that's different to the books, and a scary criminal nemesis we've never heard of. Then there's the plodding 3 act structure, ripped off every Marvel movie. The film is made for an entirely different age group to the books, probably 10+ is about right. Charlie is caught up in sibling rivalry and betrayal, crime, and some scary violence. There's loads of flashy action and pumping music. It's also way too long for younger audiences with the movement, noise, heavy themes and complex plot. The cinema experience was overwhelming. Kids were leaving the theatre.

Somebody saw a franchise opportunity in Super Charlie and they've obviously decided to ditch the younger kids who loved the books. We saw it in Swedish, perhaps it is made to appeal to American kids. But it's a sad move for a beloved character that could have been extended in sympathetic ways. No more Camilla Läckberg products in our house, sorry.

Watched it at the opening night at the local cinema, there were high expectations in the air, lobby filled of kids hoping for a really good adventure.

The movie are loosely based on the Super Charlie books, if you have read the books you will be surprised that key elements has changed, this makes it confusing especially for all those kids that have enjoyed the books. I heard several kids asking their parents why certain things happened, that differed a lot from the books

The movie uses a story telling techniques that in several parts flew over the head of the kids in the audience.

The level of chatter in the audience increased a lot during those slow and boring passages.

Rating is based on how my kids reacted, and what they talked about after the movie, they found this movie to be rather boring.

In a time when superhero fatigue is a real thing, with Marvel and DC films constantly in the cinema or on TV screens, here comes a new original story from the books of Camilla Läckberg. Based on the Swedish best-selling author's stories we have the tale of 10-year-old Wille (Pronounced "Willy" and voiced by Alex Kelly in the English version) who has always dreamed of becoming a superhero and fighting crime alongside his police-hero dad... a dream which is shattered when his new baby brother Charlie is born with actual superpowers. When a supervillain and a deranged scientist enact their evil plan, Wille and Charlie need to put their differences aside and work as a team. But can an infant and his envious brother save the city?

As far as children's animations go, this is a lot of fun. There's real truths in the about family life from the parents struggling to keep everything together with kids and jobs to Wille being annoyed that his baby brother has suddenly got all these super powers.

The source of the powers is never really explained beyond the knowledge that a comet-like light appears once every 50 years and grants someone powers. At the beginning of the film we see a young kid get powered up and now it's Charlie's turn, with him going from baby to super baby in no time at all.

There's a lot of fun to be had with the powers and the baby learning how to use them like there is with any film that covers this kind of story. It has all kinda been done before, most notably with Jak-Jak in the Incredibles films, but here it still works well in this world.

There's a proper bad guy who is wanting to get rid of Charlie's powers, there's some great set pieces which are animated really well and deliver a kids film which is up there amongst some of the best I've seen.

I'm still a kid at heart and this really made me smile and hope there's more to come from director Jon Holmberg.

I have not read the childrens books that the story is supposed to be based on, so took the movie "as is".

As an adult I thought the movie to be pretty okay. I've seen better ones, but those probably also had a production cost that was significantly higher.

Somewhat annoying is the parent's continuous ignoring of what kids wanted to say, but that's a common part in the storyline of movies that have kids as heroes.

However, it's marketed as a family-movie and has no age-limit in the PG-rating. The movie contains some intense and frightening scenery though, especially when the opposing superpowers were in play, that made my five-year cry out loud, look away and want to go home.

In my opinion a PG-7 would be more appropriate and my rating is based on that.

Although the film is marketed as being based on Camilla Läckberg's popular children's books, the similarities are minimal. Critics have noted that the story, tone, and character development diverge significantly from the original source. Instead, the filmmakers have created an entirely new plot with science fiction elements and characters that don't appear in the book series. The film mainly retains the core idea of a baby with superpowers, but takes major creative liberties, making it seem as though the rights were acquired more for brand recognition than for faithful adaptation. The result is a story that could just as easily have been made without any connection to Läckberg's work.