ANTBOY (Toronto International Film Festival Toronto Canada 2013)

Ben Meyers’ rating: 1.2|5.0 Starsì

Antboy—unrealistically laughable—starts well, in the high 3.0-star range; but, after Wilhelm (Samuel Ting Graf) finds that Pelle Nøhrmann/Antboy (Oscar Dietz) is a super hero, the film seems to fall flat. The basic concept is good; but, the script and its portrayal are hard to bear. This appears to be a first theatrical film for Director Ask Hasselbalch. It will be interesting to see more of his work in other genres. This film does show talent and actually won the Danish Roberts Award for Best Children’s Film for the year 2014.

Film Poster Courtesy of Google Images

Storyline

While Pelle Nøhrmann hides from bullies, an escaped laboratory ant crawls up his leg to his neck and bites him. Pelle blacks out, awakens, returns home, falls asleep, awakens to eat a great deal of sugar product, falls asleep, awakens, and goes to school. Pelle finds his world greatly changed as he breaks the door handle from one of the school room doors and then, during gym class, pushes a teacher across the gymnasium. His friend, Wilhelm, after witnessing these events, takes Pelle to his house to get him ready to be a superhero.

Additional Thanks

Thank you to Director Ask Hasselbalch for directing effort. Thank you to Executive Producers Bo Ehrhardt and Birgette Hald for making the film possible. Additional characters/cast include: Ida (Amalie Kruse Jensen), Dr. Gæmalkrå/ Loppen (Nicolas Bro), Amanda (Cecilie Alstrup Tarp), Allan (Marcuz Jess Petersen), Mark (Johannes Jeffries Sørensen), Mor (Lærke Winther), Far (Frank Thiel), Mr Sommersted (Caspar Phillipson), School Photographer (Jonas Schmidt), and Pelle’s Teacher (Nanna Schaumburg-Muller).

Buy a ticket? Yes? No? Maybe?

No. The film is unrealistic. The timing is poor (i.e., in the scenes where Wilhelm helps prepare Pelle to become Antboy). Even for the United States child audience, the story will most likely be difficult to plow through unless the child is exceptionally young.

Video Critique available Here:

Ben Meyers