Grand Prix of Europe movie review

Ed Euromaus and Edda Euromausi have been the mascot of the European park near the Baden village of Rust for 50 years. The Europa-Park has written an impressive success story, since it is not only the most successful German amusement park with around six million visitors a year, but also on the European scale in second place-right after Disneyland Paris, which may not happen to have a certain mouse as a mascot. But success or not – a Micky Mouse is still not ED Euromaus in terms of its awareness beyond the park fences. And so you wonder who actually thought it was a promising idea of bringing a elaborately produced, full-length animation film with Ed and Edda to the park.

In the world of “Grand Prix of Europe“In any case, ED (on the actually somewhat cumbersome surname of the mascot is consistently dispensed with in the film) is a sweaty world star. But that's no wonder, because everything in this world is about rallying, i.e. racing through roads in public space. Not at least adorable or watch racing races on TV, there are no here. However, this is not entirely correct: there is still an amusement park, and it belongs to Edda's father Erwin and, as always in stories of this kind, is of course threatened by bankruptcy.

The evil credit sharks, um, cats, to which Erwin owes a lot of money, never then appear again until they are finally dissipated in handcuffs at some point. Whatever the reason, because the film is primarily about winning the money in order to be able to pay them out – and not about getting out of your crooked shops. This amount of money can only be achieved through the winning of the title “Grand Prix of Europe” – and Erwin's car enthusiast only achieves auto -enthusiastic daughter Edda through her similarity to the arrogant series winner Ed, a kind of Lightning McQueen in the mouse body. He has sprained his arm and urgently has to hide the injuries, because every physically impaired driver is disqualified by the race management.

Despite a bumpy start, Edda can prove her talent quite quickly, and yet a number of strange intermediate and accidents give the suspicion that something is lazy in the state, um, Europe. Strange sabotage files influence the outcome of the five races that structure the film, and quickly Edda's suspicion of Ed's largest rival, the Sinistren Raben Nachkrapp. But is there really always the one behind it that is most obvious as a villain? And what does the “eternal second” have to do with it as a good loser, popular Swedish cuddly bear Magnus?

Between “Cars 4” and an animated “Doc Hollywood”

In terms of content, the story of the arrogant racing driver Edters Ed comes to the values of team spirit and friendship as a makeshift retelling of Pixars “Cars”-which was again an unofficial remake of the nineties-Romcom “Doc Hollywood” with Michael J. Fox. In addition, in “Grand Prix of Europe” there is a flashback to a cheerful, then lonely orphanage child, which EDS is supposed to underpin. But basically the film by director Waldemar caught almost these stations as soon as possible, in order to then ran from races. Basically not the worst tactics, because the rally is a very grateful cinematic subject that can score as a ensemble as a road movie with dazzling protagonists such as tourist show values-and that has already given the children's cinema large and small classics, from Disney's “A great beetle in the Rallye Monte Carlo” to the low-budget of the German cinema master Rudolf Zehetgruber with “The craziest car in the world”.

Unfortunately, this fails because what could actually be very attractive about the idea of an animated rallyfilm across Europe is completely given away. Because the race tracks located in various European countries do not exude cultural flair at all. Rather, like levels in a video game peppered with Gimmicks, in which lubricating bombs make the streets slippery, huge snowballs sweep the cars off the streets and grab buses to the racing car. That also sounds much more fun than it then comes on the screen, because every race track in “Super Mario Kart” comes with more wit and Esprit than the races of the “Grand Prix of Europe”.

There is less lack of technical ability or effort, even if the scissors taped far apart. While Ed and Edda and a handful of recurring supporting characters are quite convincingly encouraged, the film also teemances of extremely spartan figures that stand around somewhere in the back or for the foreground and automatically refuge forever of the same movement sequences. NPCs (non player characters), which are supposed to revitalize the world of the film, but themselves seem completely lifeless. However, it is even worse that a lot remains so witless in “Grand Prix of Europe”:

Subsid figures such as a short -sighted clairvoyant who reads the future of potatoes and grapefruit, or a verbally quite contradictory, consisting of a parrot and a camel, should carry through the film as running gags. But it never laughs. “Grand Prix of Europe” is also brought to international cinemas with considerable effort-in the English-language version, Hollywood actors such as Gemma Arterton and Hayley Atwell speak, in the Germans, on the other hand, the Ü50 celebrities around DJ Bobo and Jan Delay. But given the competition in the genre of the CGI animation film, this is simply too little in the end.

Conclusion: It remains a bit puzzling, for whom the first animated cinema adventure of the Europa Park mascot Ed and Edda is actually done. As part of an interactive leisure park setting, in which the previous cinematic appearances of the Euromews are presented in Rust in Baden, all of this may be enough and fun. But for a full -length movie, it would be urgently needed to invest more than the absolute minimum in narrative and WorldBuilding. “Grand Prix of Europe” looks a bit like a 100-minute video game, but you shouldn't play along yourself. Or a roller coaster that stops on the ground, while everyone pretends that you just have a bomb fun.