Jönssonligan & DynamitHarry

"The original is always better" is the standard war-cry in a re-making or transfer ... yes I'm aware. I grew up with the Danish original Olsen-Banden but was very aware not to judge this Swedish re-enactment compared to the original but on its own merits. Being a knock-off of the most successful movie series in Denmark there are high expectations though. I see many Swedish comedies and series and love most of them immensely. Jönssonligan is a disaster on every level. It is heavy-handed, amateurish, unfunny, forced ... everything is awkward. A school play when it goes wrong. The characters are not believable and uncharming, the music is cheap and uninteresting, the gags are not meticulously perfected in details as is the trademark of the original. Doesn't need to be the same but the perfectionism in the details is a must to make it work. The magic in the Danish series, which they were right to try to implement in a Swedish context and to Sweditize, is totally lost. What a shame, they got it all handed on a silver plate. Not even the walk they got right, the magic are the small steps the middle man do to keep in sync. But at least they kept the characters. The laugh of all times is when a producer in USA wanted to re-do Faulty Towers ... and wrote Basil Faulty out of the script.