Chantal im Märchenland

Admittedly, I am clearly the target audience for this film, as for whatever reason I enjoy writer-director Bora Dagtekin's humor in many (though not all) cases. Yes, he's a little rougher, a little more down-to-earth, not always nice and certainly not every joke is always right - but the bottom line is that his films and series are mostly good entertainment.

The film is accused of embodying everything that is bad about German film. It would be rubbish with no quality, made for the uneducated lower classes (the accusation alone says more about the aloofness of the critics than about the film). It's filmed "Trash TV". Nothing could be more wrong and anyone who believes that either hasn't seen the film or hasn't understood it.

Rarely have values such as friendship, willingness to sacrifice, willingness to learn, but also female emancipation and LGBTQ been treated so casually and humorously in a German film. When the main actress was confronted with a dragon (not a real spoiler), I had to think of the film "Damsel", which had only appeared on Netflix a few weeks earlier - and how intensively it was all handled there.

The film is just great fun. Not every gag works, but given the abundance of gags and the different tastes of people, everyone will find their own points of criticism. In the end, this film is carried by Jella Haase, who is without a doubt not only one of the most gifted comediennes Germany currently has to offer, but also one of the best actresses. Her "Chantal" is a stunner.

Typical German cinema. Clichéd, flat, simply shameful.

The director is obviously not capable of more.

The dialog is so bad that I get the feeling that my uncle, who doesn't really know how young people talk, wrote it.

I can't understand how a movie like this can still be released in 2024.

The movie is humorless and has neither entertainment value nor does it teach you anything.

How can a director despise his job so much to deliver such trash?

How little self-esteem an actor must have to be part of a production like this.

If that's all Germany has to offer in film, then there's no reason to invest even one more euro in this industry.

A witty and fast pace comedy with quite a message about feminism and patriarchy. Great cast, convincing special effects - it's a parody, nothing else. The viewer can feel the fun they had when filming.

Jella Haase is well accompanied by other fun guns like Nora Tschirner or Maria Happel, my nine stars come because in its category this movie is top notch entertainment. And finally, made for a local audience in first place, rather than producing a movie for international releases.

Full of funny details and citing many other genres, it's a ton of fun. Maybe not for young kids, because most dialogue is quite rough.

The entire Movie is a straight up insult to the viewers willing suspension of disbelief and to make it through you have to willingly suspend any and all function of your brain.

One really has to ask the question how little anyone responsible for this cared about the general concept of Filmmaking as a whole, to think it was a good Idea, to take an extremely one-dimensional comic-relief-character from a Teenie-Franchise about a dysfunctional school and send her on an epic quest through a fantasy world with castles and dragons.

All of this wouldn't even be half as offensive if the entire point of the character in question wasn't to point fingers and make fun of the lower class population, instead of asking the question what the issue with trapping and abandoning people in poverty could be, which should've been outdated even when the first movie of the franchise hit the cinema in 2013.

German Film Funding will put money into anything that is backed by an already successful franchise (by domestic standards anyways) and you basically get free tax-payer money to fund absolute dumpster fires like these, keeping an entire film-crew busy that could've worked on something more meaningful in the meantime. But if you're a young, talented writer, who thinks outside the box and has ideas for something fresh, new or dare I say experimental even, good luck pitching any ideas to the officials responsible. So much talent going to waste in this broken industry.

It's as if the Middle-Finger in the Movie's Poster was meant literally, insulting not only the viewer for watching this crap but also the entire-german movie industry, saying:"Look what we can get away with while you will never get to realize your dreams.". Poetry.

I do like Jella Haase very much, she is a pretty good actor and has acted serious characters like in "Kriegerin" and also Chantal in "Fack ju Göthe" were she was gorgeous and very funny. Also "Kleo" is the beste German tv-show I saw for a very long time. But this movie, I don't think it's meant for kids, it doesn't work (for me). It is silly, but not funny. And I was more surprised than disappointed about Jella trying to do her thing but - there was, to me, absolutely nothing of Chantal, except a covering with no content. It seemed to be the Chantal-Show ... episode 1028 ... To me, the jokes did not work! But I'm happily looking forward to "Kleo" that starts soon now. Let's hope, Jella has more fun with her ... 🤗