Horst in Translation (filmreviews@web.de)
"Smaragdgrün" or "Emerald Green" is a German movie from this year, a big screen release, and I personally think this is a contender for worst German movie of the year. But first things first: It was written and directed by Fuchssteiner and Schade, the two filmmakers that also worked on the two previous installments already and the whole thing is based on the novels by Kerstin Gier. Just like the previous films I mentioned, this one here is also relatively long, comes close to the two-hour mark and the cast will include familiar faces from the previous films as well as some new ones too. The cast is not really the problem. Yes there are relatively untalented people in here like Lotsi, Kanies or Ullmann, but there are also talented actors included here like Simonischek or Thalbach. And I also believe that lead actress Maria Ehrich is nit that bad really. The huge problem here is the script/screenplay. And as I have not read any of the novels, I am not entirely sure if Gier is to blame or the people who adapted her work. But it is very clear that the outcome is a huge failure.Of course, the fantasy element (time traveling, immortality potions, secret societies) can excuse a bit of the absurd story and plot, but certainly not all of it. One of the worst components here is also the dialogue writing. At least one third of all that has been said during these 110 minutes was stuff that felt completely fake and unauthentic. And sadly, maybe another third of the dialogues feels just included to be as showy, as memorable, as deep and as meaningful without ever being any of these things. One perfect example of this is all the romantic talk. It is downright cringeworthy when people randomly ramble on about feeling like a metallic explosion when they are with anybody else because they love them so so much etc. and they never want to be without them. Great emotions there? Well, not really. Lets just say little emotion that feels to young teenage (girl) audiences like great emotion. And this is probably also the target group for these films. I'd be worried as a parent if my child grew up with stuff like that. I'd want my child to see quality. Anyway, I was a bit generous with the previous two movies giving them 4 stars out of 10 each, but I will not be generous here any more. The entire story makes almost no sense at all. The characters we are supposed to like are actually sometimes downright unlikable apart from being really bad actors. Lotsi is probably the worst of the bunch and I cannot see her have any career after this trilogy. Then again, she also suffers from the writing like everybody else, even a wonderfully talented actor like Simonischek, who plays the most generic, stereotypically uninteresting villain ever. And yeah, the entire film is also really predictable and certainly not in a good way as the ending feels almost as weak as everything else here. Really glad it's over now. This is the teenage-oriented alternative of a Rosamunde Pilcher film that meets "Die Wanderhure" and if you have seen any of these you know how garbage the quality must be. There is nothing in terms of quality fantasy in here like in the Harry Potter films of course. When people are talking about how bad the Twilight films are, then they are frequently wrong. But there probably is not a single criticism I have read about Twilight that does not apply to this movie here. Stay far far away.
