“Gabby's Dollhouse” is one of the most popular series for children on Netflix-and one of the most successful merchandise brands of the planet! Since 2021, eleven seasons have been produced in just four years-and an end to the mix of real film and computer animation, in which attempts are always made to actively include the young audience. Season 12 starts in November 2025. Before that, however, the first movie appears, staged by Ryan Crego. The American thus delivers his feature film debut, but has previously created the series “Home: Adventures with Tip & Oh” for Netflix.
Even if the fantasy adventure takes on locations, the story and the number of characters take significantly larger dimensions, everyone who knows the series should feel like “at home” (after all, there are quite a few children's rooms that are completely equipped with Gabby CAT dolls up to Dollthouse bed linen). However, if you have never seen the series before, you will immediately find yourself in the magical world with “Gabby's Dollhouse: The Film”. The whole thing is not too demanding- this is completely okay in view of the primarily targeted target group in pre- and primary school age.
In the first part of the film, Gabby (Laila Lockhart Kraner) still appears as a real film figure before she later shrinks down to the size of her Gabby Cats in an animated form.
The New York teener Gabby (Laila Lockhart Kraner, who also delivers the voice for the animated version of her figure) gets a visit from her beloved grandma Gigi (Gloria Estefan). The grandmother wants to pick up Gabby so that she can spend the summer with her in the California Katz Francisco. Of course, this is not possible without Gabby's huge doll house where you keep all of her little favorites – the Gabby Cats like Carlita, Cakey or Catrat. When they arrive at the destination, Gabby storms into the house and wants to start a new, common handicraft project with Grandma immediately.
In the meantime, the unattended Gabby Cats fiddles around Gigi's wagons – and since Katz Francisco is built on a series of hills, they thunder straight down into the densely used downtown with their rolling dwelling. There the stone -rich vera (Kristen Wiig), which collects everything that has to do with cats, comes on the scene: she sees the doll house decorated with pointed ears and mustache and simply takes it to her hermetically sealed at home …
First real film, then animation
“Gabby's Dollhouse: The Film” does not stay with a preliminary plan for long, but simply starts with a monkey tooth into the adventure. The road trip by granddaughter and grandma is literally completed in the time-lapse using a map and short moments of the two. And even after that, there is little opportunity for the characters nor for the audience to take a breath.
As in the individual series episodes, the protagonist and her world are initially shown in real form before Gabby, using a hair ripe with cat ears and a magical singing, she shrinks into the imaginative and varied doll house (and from then on occurs in her animated alter ego). This transition is clever and funny.
After the shelf series in the toy business, the Gabby Cats are now also dominating the cinema screen.
On the other hand, the interactive segment in the form of breakthroughs of the fourth wall is quite lame, in which the characters (mostly Gabby, but also their grandma or one of the Gabby Cats) speak directly to the audience in the cinema hall to encourage them to sing along and dance. Perhaps it is also due to the German dubbing and sterile -looking German dubbing. The fact is, however, that despite a good half of a dozen of such occasions, not a single of the children presented by FilmStarts has been tracked down or moved out of his armchair.
Speaking of singing: The songs given in the film are all mentioned in the credits with their human composers and interpreters. However, they sound in such a streamlined-calculated and clumsy design on tralala that it would not be surprised by the author of these lines if they were actually created by a AI. In any case, none of them really get stuck in the ear.
Kristen Wiig goes full throttle
To do this, the non-musical performances create a good mood over long distances-both in the streaming series, even more complex and detailed, animated scenes as well as in the real film section. Of course, with the backdrops, costumes and props, which are almost continuously kept in candy colors, everything works very artificial. But once you have got used to the shrill look, it works great and with its many small, sometimes funny, then slightly sloping attractions on the side, ensures some laughs. With the exception of the Pandy Paws, a Panda kitten doll, which has been established as a fan favorite for years, the animated Gabby Cats are quite one-dimensional. Each of them is actually only characterized by their appearance or a single property.
Fortunately, the human main characters have a little more to offer. Laila Lockhart Kraner (“Black-ISH”) credibly embodies the boy, who fought her little friends fighting cat doll mum. 1980 pop star Gloria Estefan (“The Father of the Bride”) does not have too much decisive to do, but it also always looks sympathetic, committed and loving. On the other hand, Kristen Wiig can turn up properly as a villain. Obviously, the “bridal alarm” star enjoys his colorful clothes and eccentric behavior to the fullest. The best is the scenes in which Vera vouches for the attention of her own domestic cat with often completely over -the -end efforts, but this always acknowledges the contortions of her mistress with a wonderfully disinterested look.
Conclusion: A completely free-over Kristen Wiig, her stoic kitty and the rapid, never boredom pace are the best aspects of this otherwise quite simply knitted, but shrill-colored and turbulent fantasy adventure for kids.