Everyone got away with a black eye. Launched as a more youthful, cooler competition for the extremely successful “The School of Magical Animals” series, the first “Woodwalkers” movie was a huge disappointment: Now in the first volume of the series by Katja Brandis, which has grown to more than 20 (!) books in just 10 years, not much super-exciting happened anyway – but there were also technical problems, which is why many of the animal transformation scenes seemed more strange than magical.
Nevertheless, more than three quarters of a million visitors flocked to German cinemas in October 2024. Certainly not the result we were hoping for – after all, “The School of Magical Animals” regularly hits the three million mark – but not a complete catastrophe either. In this case, this would have been doubly painful, as the second part was already being filmed at that point (not out of arrogance, but because there is simply no other way with such young protagonists – otherwise you wouldn't recognize the young stars after a long break).
A big step forward
“Woodwalkers” also launched on Netflix in July 2025 – and has again been busy collecting views there. As with “Moana 2” or “Zoomania 2”, the chances are not bad that “Woodwalkers 2” could also benefit from the additional streaming fan community – and the franchise certainly knows how to use this second opportunity: With Sven Unterwaldt now at the helm, not only is the director of the million-dollar “7 Dwarves” superhits taking over, but also of “The School of Magical Animals 2 + 3” – and in fact, not everything works perfectly in the sequel, but at least many things noticeably better.
Carag (Emile Chérif) has to decide whether he wants to testify against his mentor or not: there's a lot at stake!
After the events of the first part, the cougar converter Carag (Emile Chérif) is supposed to testify before the Woodwalker Council against his former mentor Andrew Milling (Oliver Masucci). However, only the now politically active major entrepreneur knows where Carag's biological family, who live as pumas in the wilderness, is. The deal: The student at Clearwater High, which is only accessible to shapeshifters, keeps his mouth shut in front of the council, but in return he finally sees his parents and his little sister Mia (Lara Amélie Rosa) again. But the meeting turns out very differently than expected.
Carag's father Xamber (David Schütter) doesn't believe in the fact that his son wants to continue living in the city in his human form instead of returning to his family in Yellowstone National Park in his animal form. In addition, Milling also seems to be pursuing nasty plans again: While the school principal Lissa Clearwater (Martina Gedeck) still thinks he is a charitable benefactor, the shady building contractor Tucker Jones (Moritz Bleibtreu) plays a central role in his sinister machinations…
The Hulk problem
When red squirrel shifter Holly (Lilli Falk) transforms into her animal form, her clothes simply slump to the ground. But with larger animals like the bison shifter (Johan von Ehrlich), the T-shirt and pants tear apart like the Marvel Hulk, so that in the end only shreds remain. So after every single transformation you have to go shopping for clothes, or what? But if you feel like thinking about the logic of the logistics of shapeshifting, that at least suggests that you're no longer upset about the poor quality of the effects. Is it Hollywood level? No. But this time it's completely fine for a production of this magnitude.
In any case, it certainly has its charm when the Austrian filming location serves as a representative of the US state of Wyoming – and the well-known German stars suddenly have decidedly English names. It has something of Edgar Wallace or, most recently, “The Three ??? and the Carpathian Dog,” in which we also liked the German-populated Los Angeles. What still takes a lot of getting used to is the decision that the shapeshifters in their animal form communicate with each other telepathically, which is why their lips don't move when they speak. But unfortunately that can no longer be changed and will probably feel wrong even with the umpteenth part.
With Tom Schilling (as Mr. Crump in the picture) and Moritz Bleibtreu, “Woodwalkers 2” has two additional stars in the cast.
The conflicts seem much more urgent in the sequel, with the already prominent cast being expanded to include two more stars: Tom Schilling (“The Flying Classroom”) contributes solid fart slapstick as a model civil servant guardian, while Moritz Bleibtreu (“Caveman”) is unfortunately just a nasty off-the-shelf businessman. The “Woodwalkers” films will never reach the depth of “Harry Potter” when it comes to depicting everyday life at boarding school; the originals are far too sparse for that, but there are still lots of nice little ideas: This time, the shape-shifting teens are given special human lessons in which they learn to interpret people’s facial expressions – almost like a dog trainer, only the other way around. I'd love to have more of it (the various, unusual subjects were always one of the Hogwarts highlights).
In addition to the incredibly cute wolf pup Miro, the ending is also successful – and not only because of a cathartic environmental group action, but also because of the quite ambivalent positioning of villain Andrew Milling. While at the end of “Woodwalkers” we really asked ourselves why we should watch more of it, the finale of the sequel actually makes us want to see “Woodwalkers 3,” which is currently scheduled to hit theaters in September 2027.
Conclusion: At least clearly better than the first part.