Merolliv
I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.
Horst in Translation (filmreviews@web.de)
"Die Wilden Hühner" is a German 105-minute movie from 2006, so this one had its 10th anniversary last year. It is based on a novel by Vivian Naefe and was actually the first of three films about the Wild Chicks. Of course, the title here does not refer to actual chicken, but to a gang of young females who call themselves Wilde Hühner. Still, there are also actual chicken in here as one of the protagonists' main challenges is to keep them alive from the old grandma of one of the kids who wants to eat them. Other antagonists include a fox (who has an interest in the chicken as well) and a violent dad (who has more of an interest in beating the children). So I believe there is certainly the option that this could have been a quality movie. Looking at the cast, you will find Jessica Schwarz, Piet Klocke, Benno Fürmann, Doris Schade, Axel Prahl and Veronica Ferres, which shows that even big names from Germany's film industry always have an interest to appear in kids movies because they are usually successful with audiences and frequently also with critics. Oh yeah, Katja Riemann's daughter is also on board playing one of the friends of lead actress Michelle von Treuberg's character. von Treuberg herself has stopped acting basically when this movie series ended.But while I enjoyed some parts, I also had problems with other parts of the film. First of all, I am not too happy with how the chicken were chased around at the very end, all while this film is telling us that it's all about saving these chicken. Then there were individual moments like Fürmann's and especially Schwarz' character getting so involved with the whole Chicken/Pygmy's story and from my school experience, this did not feel authentic at all, that they even use these gang names when speaking to the class for example. And finally, can a film really be a good that has Veronica Ferres in it and none of the performances feel better at all than hers with how limited of an actress she is? Overall, if at all, this is really just a movie for children unlike many other German kids movies that also make a decent watch for adults. I personally do not have much interest in seeing the two sequels anytime soon, but I still will at some point probably hoping they are superior to this one here. It is not a bad movie or a failure by any means, but I think it is a missed opportunity. Having not read the book(s) this is based on I am not sure if the fault is with the original author or the 2 screen play writers Kar and Reich, but the outcome here is eventually pretty underwhelming. I give it a thumbs-down.
Xenzi
I've never been much of a fan of Cornelia Funke's "Wilde Hühner" books, so I took my 7-year-old daughter to see this with some reluctance. I was agreeably surprised, though. The story works, the kids are great, and what I liked best was the realistic portrayal of their family backgrounds, not quite the common fare in kid's movies. Most of it was subtly done, like in some of Astrid Lindgren's stories. These kids' troubles are for real, and if there's evil in this film, it's the evil of thoughtless neglect on the part of the parents. Every kid (and adult) can identify with that. The dialog tended to be too heavy sometimes, but this is the only real fault I could find. Gripping and touching.
