"Bodo - Eine ganz normale Familie" or "The Wiz Kid" or "Bodo" or "Das Programm" is a West German 1.5-hour film from 1989, so this one was released briefly before the reunification. For director Behrens, it is perhaps the most known career effort, for writers Konstantin and Weber it is the only and the latter is also true for many cast members here, especially the children. The film is advertized heavily by the presence of Heiner Lauterbach, still among Germany's most known today and while he is a pretty charismatic actor, he does not have the biggest range to be honest and that he is still more in the center of it all than everybody else in here says nothing too positive about the film. And the most ridiculous thing is that he has virtually no screen time at all as it is all about the kids, especially Bodo and his clone. So yes the clone story means indeed that they needed identical twins for the central characters here, which obviously limited the number of potential candidates, but honestly they really should have been able to come up with more suitable candidates than the Forbes', especially as apparently they even had to redo his voice. I'm not surprised at all their career was so short-lived from what I saw in here. Admittedly almost all other child actors are just as bad to be honest and sometimes pretty cringeworthy to watch, like the bullies early on for example.
This film tries to be a lot: coming-of-age story, first love, modern musical (to some extent), fantasy movie and you will find other genres too. However, it comes truly short in all of these really. Maybe less would have been more here and the lack of talent, also by the writers, not just the (younger) actors is something that is really painful to watch. There are only 2 positive things I can say here: Kukavica was cute and gave maybe the best performance in here, so it is a shame she stopped acting too right away. And the second would be the song "I Want a Heart" we hear very early and very late during this one. It sounded like "hug" instead of "heart" to me, which would have been cuter even perhaps. Anyway, there is a lot wrong with this film. Nothing makes sense and the fictional fantasy genre inclusion cannot explain most of the flaws at all. You will see them when (not if) they are there. But best is really to skip this one in its entirety. This is not a film you want your kids to watch and I am baffled that it has received a bit of a cult status by now, especially abroad as it was really bad in my opinion. Highly not recommended.
This film tries to be a lot: coming-of-age story, first love, modern musical (to some extent), fantasy movie and you will find other genres too. However, it comes truly short in all of these really. Maybe less would have been more here and the lack of talent, also by the writers, not just the (younger) actors is something that is really painful to watch. There are only 2 positive things I can say here: Kukavica was cute and gave maybe the best performance in here, so it is a shame she stopped acting too right away. And the second would be the song "I Want a Heart" we hear very early and very late during this one. It sounded like "hug" instead of "heart" to me, which would have been cuter even perhaps. Anyway, there is a lot wrong with this film. Nothing makes sense and the fictional fantasy genre inclusion cannot explain most of the flaws at all. You will see them when (not if) they are there. But best is really to skip this one in its entirety. This is not a film you want your kids to watch and I am baffled that it has received a bit of a cult status by now, especially abroad as it was really bad in my opinion. Highly not recommended.