"Die weiße Schlange" is an award-winning German tellevision film from 2015, so this one has its 5th anniversary this year, but not yet now because this was released for the holidays back then. Nothing too uncommon as these many German fairytale-based films from the last 15 years or so usually premiered in December. These slightly over 90 minutes are no exception. The running time is, however, because most of the time they only ran for one hour exactly, minimally under even, and even those who went longer never made it past the 1.5-hour mark. Judging from the quality of this film here, this limitation may be a good thing because it was not working too well. This has to do with the writers most of all. One of them has never worked on another film before or after this one here, while the second was not particularly experienced either. Director Bühling, however, was relatively experienced already back in 2015, although stuff like "Verbotene Liebe" and "Alles was zählt" is nothing to be proud of to have in your body of work. Okay, as for this film here, it is of course based on a tale by the Brothers Grimm and if they got to watch the overall outcome here, I am pretty certain they would not be too happy about it. It is definitely one of their lesser, if not least, known works, but the fact that this got turned into a film too shows you that by 2015 they already had made films about everything else from them basically. And that is a lot. I must say I have not even heard the name here I believe before coming across this movie. Looking at how it turned out, it was probably not my loss, although I would not be too surprised if the original story offers way more than we get to see here and the film is just all about shoddy execution.
Normally, you have some pretty well known German actors in these fairytale films. They are popular no denying. There was another on today for example that had Iris Berben and Michael Gwisdek perform. Regardless of me thinking that they are both incredibly overrated and fairly limited when it comes to their range, they are still famous actors here in Germany. Big name performers. This one here does not have any of these. If anybody fits this description, then it's Karrenbauer and Naujoks, who both show up as voice actors here. But even they are more known for their recognition value and certainly not for having a lot of versatility. Still there was one actor here that I liked and that would be Reiner Schöne. He did fine and he is (thanks to his long career) probably among the more known cast members here. Other than him, maybe lead actor Schultz and Leder fit the description best. But they are nowhere near star level. So it is fitting that for one of the least impressive Grimm tales, they also got one of the least impressive casts. Shame that the running time is among the most impressive here. They should have kept it down to 59 minutes too. The acting (except Schöne) is never convincing by anybody and the film really felt for the sake of it. Like the story about the princess and hoe she does not care for the guy from the royal garde courting her was as generic and for the sake of it as almost everything else about the film. I also thought that the idea of how eating the snake could make people talk to animals was not executed in a manner where it seemed interesting. And this really took some special (lack of) talent to mess up such an extraordinary plot twist. It already started with how the male protagonist would take a bite from this snake. It made no sense at all that he would do it. Same for ho he starts spying on the king, who actually treated him really well before that. The more I think about it, the more I feel as if the original story by the Brothers Grimm deserves to be read by more because it is a fairly fantastic take on things. But what they made of all this here, is just so generic. You never care for the good guys. You never care for the protagonist getting together with the princess. You never care for who's in prison down there. And also it felt pretty unrealistic how the centrall character wins the fight at the end against the evil king. I mean look at hos he is beaten up by his dad early on. The way how they turned this into a bland and uninspired watch overall made me actually happy they did not return to this story later on to bring back a movinng father-son tale. This already has enough cringe anyway without such a plot. The most cringeworthy moment was probably when he realized he defeated the king and he screams out his name and origin. The most unrealistic moment is how he keeps getting away from the military forces that the king has at his disposal. Very little made sense here. Two stars out of five is still fairly generous and mostly for costumes and sets. Even if you like fairytales, you can skip the watch here. I hope they give us a better take on the story at some point in the near future. The Grimms deserve it. People who watch this could actually think they sucked.
Normally, you have some pretty well known German actors in these fairytale films. They are popular no denying. There was another on today for example that had Iris Berben and Michael Gwisdek perform. Regardless of me thinking that they are both incredibly overrated and fairly limited when it comes to their range, they are still famous actors here in Germany. Big name performers. This one here does not have any of these. If anybody fits this description, then it's Karrenbauer and Naujoks, who both show up as voice actors here. But even they are more known for their recognition value and certainly not for having a lot of versatility. Still there was one actor here that I liked and that would be Reiner Schöne. He did fine and he is (thanks to his long career) probably among the more known cast members here. Other than him, maybe lead actor Schultz and Leder fit the description best. But they are nowhere near star level. So it is fitting that for one of the least impressive Grimm tales, they also got one of the least impressive casts. Shame that the running time is among the most impressive here. They should have kept it down to 59 minutes too. The acting (except Schöne) is never convincing by anybody and the film really felt for the sake of it. Like the story about the princess and hoe she does not care for the guy from the royal garde courting her was as generic and for the sake of it as almost everything else about the film. I also thought that the idea of how eating the snake could make people talk to animals was not executed in a manner where it seemed interesting. And this really took some special (lack of) talent to mess up such an extraordinary plot twist. It already started with how the male protagonist would take a bite from this snake. It made no sense at all that he would do it. Same for ho he starts spying on the king, who actually treated him really well before that. The more I think about it, the more I feel as if the original story by the Brothers Grimm deserves to be read by more because it is a fairly fantastic take on things. But what they made of all this here, is just so generic. You never care for the good guys. You never care for the protagonist getting together with the princess. You never care for who's in prison down there. And also it felt pretty unrealistic how the centrall character wins the fight at the end against the evil king. I mean look at hos he is beaten up by his dad early on. The way how they turned this into a bland and uninspired watch overall made me actually happy they did not return to this story later on to bring back a movinng father-son tale. This already has enough cringe anyway without such a plot. The most cringeworthy moment was probably when he realized he defeated the king and he screams out his name and origin. The most unrealistic moment is how he keeps getting away from the military forces that the king has at his disposal. Very little made sense here. Two stars out of five is still fairly generous and mostly for costumes and sets. Even if you like fairytales, you can skip the watch here. I hope they give us a better take on the story at some point in the near future. The Grimms deserve it. People who watch this could actually think they sucked.
