Ruby Red

i want to skip rating the story because one may like it or not. what i want to talk about is the acting, camera, effects etc.

i didn't know anything about the movie. just saw an ad and went to watch it. 6 minutes into the movie and i kinda get annoyed. after 2 shots it was clear: German production. and i can't stand German productions. i am German, but i can not stand the way German movies try to copy American stylistic elements and fail miserably or use worn out ones. 6 minutes into the movie. bad acting, as sadly common for German acting. slow-motion-lover-boy appearance. main character mistaken for waitress at snobby party. main character tough but clumsy and by accident spills drinks over lover-boy. stereotypes all the way. it may be caused by the story itself, but the task of techniques and effects in movie-making should be used to smoothen failures and to put highlights on strong elements. it totally failed in doing so. the way the actors speak, act and behave combined with those poor techniques makes me so angry. and i am only 6 minutes into the movie.

I watched this movie in cinemas when it first came out, and actually enjoyed it quite a lot (I was 13/14 years old, which I believe was the target audience? Teen females?)

I wasn't satisfied because it left a lot of mysteries unsolved, so I went out and read the books, which cleared up a lot. It really got me hooked because I wanted to know /more/.

And if you ask me, the way the story is told differs (i.e. a lot of mysteries in the end) mostly because, if you read the books, you notice the story picks up right where the former book ends. (And all the books were published within two years, wow that is some speedy writing right there) Not like with Harry Potter, where you have several weeks between the end of the schoolyear and the middle/end of the summer holidays.

The acting? Eh, I've definitely seen worse. Could be better at some points, but definitely not so bad you're constantly cringing. (Unless you're used to high-quality acting at all points in a movie. Then I guess you'd really notice it)

Clichés? Especially during my second viewing right now, I certainly found several, but the movie has enough novelties so that the clichés really aren't that bad or noticeable.

So while the movie does have several flaws (some of which probably come from not being a blockbuster movie with a huge budget) I enjoyed it.

Maybe I'm a bit biased because of how much I liked the books, but I definitely adore the story, the time-travelling and the interactions with the past and the characters in different times. And if you ask me, the BIG plot twist at the end of the trilogy made reading the entire thing worth it. The movie differs quite a bit from the book, though the changes are more exciting than annoying.

I should probably mention that I first watched the German version when it was released, and the English dub a lot later. The German version is better. The dialogue works better, the characters seem much more natural and it's funnier. (Seriously, I cringed at how the lines were changed and recited. Ugh, just... no. It doesn't work. At all.)

It has been 3 years since I properly watched this movie and read the books, but I still like it.

So if you're a teen, enjoy time-travel (and romance I guess, I personally didn't watch it for that) and want some entertainment, then heck yeah, go check it out.

A hint: Don't watch only one movie at a time. You're left frustrated and mad because you want to know more, because there are so many things that haven't been dealt with. My tip would be to either continue with the books or wait until all the movies have been released and then start a marathon.

Well this review is hilariously unstructured and I'm sorry if I went off on weird tangents, but kudos to you if you managed to read it all and got some information that's helpful to you. I'm not sure what people want to know about most, so I just threw in a bit of everything.

I'm going to watch the second movie now, since I missed it in cinemas, and if that holds up to standard, I will definitely see the third movie this year too.

Sometimes I wonder what kind of idiots decide what is fit for kids. We might get a decent teen movie with that subject. It's not a 13+ but a 6+ movie.

There is nothing really untowards. It is full of stereotypes, you barely know more about the plot at the end of the film than in the beginning. It's lenghty, cheesy, predictable. In the next episodes you can expect a big romance and scenes of escapes where the heroes stop to kiss and have a conversation before they're safe because it's a rule of the genre.

Very few writers are able to pull a good time-travel story. Maybe the author of the books did, but those of the movie failed. Kids and young teens will find it entertaining but adults will prefer Harry Potter. See what I mean ?

Don't confuse this as anything else than it actually is. This is aimed at teenagers. Which means it's simple, as simple as it gets. It is nice to see a genre movie coming out of Germany, even if it is aimed at a younger audience and a female crowd at that (fantasy themed movies/books seem to have a huge female fan base in Germany). It's a nice touch to see strong female characters though (even if you can't relate to all their troubles and stipulations.

This movie is a "how it all begins". I haven't read the books this is based on and they probably have a wider reach, more character development and all that, but I can't comment on that. I can only say, that the movie at hand is well made and has some fine moments, even when filled with clichéd action.

Rubinrot is a decent movie.

in these times when there is a huge focus on young adults in books and movies, it is easy to label it as 'yet another young adult story' and ignore it, but lets not forget that 'YA' is just another label for 'teen', and there have been teen-oriented movies as long as there has been cinema, so its not so bad to spend some time on one more.

so we have quite a mess with mysticism, super powers, conspiracy on one hand, and of course a cast-off schoolgirl, with her own teen problems on the other.

a handsome young adult male is also in the mix, of course. and so is a change of hearts, friendship and deceit, and, yes - romance.

the movie is quite watchable if you ignore the simplicity of the story. some more jokes would've been nice. acting is quite bad, but luckily - not horrible.

overall, recommended for teens - i wonder if another YA trilogy is on its way, not of much scale and ambition, but why not jump for some time-travel fun...