Horst in Translation (filmreviews@web.de)
"Bibi&Tina: voll verhext" is the sequel to "Bibi & Tina - Der Film" and is directed and written again by Detlev Buck with support from Bettina Börgerding. The central characters are the same like in the last film and there is also lots of singing involved again, pretty much one song or more from the main players. My favorite song is still the main theme at the very beginning. I have to say some of the other songs seem quite cheesy initially, but they have earworm potential for sure. Lina Larissa Strahl does a good job and I clearly see some talent here. She may have a promising future. Unfortunately, I am not so big on Lisa-Marie Koroll. Even with her many years of acting experience from Familie "Dr. Kleist", I was fairly underwhelmed and found Tina occasionally rather unlikeable, which is certainly not intended for her character. At least I think so, I have not heard any of the audio books and cassettes recently. But maybe a bit of this was also due to the writing. The actor who played the love interest to Bibi did not really wow me either unfortunately. However, this film had some nice performances too. Apart from Strahl, I quite enjoyed Michael Maertens (sounded like Christoph Maria Herbst occasionally) who really gave life to his character and his mannerisms are very funny. Mavie Hörbiger was okay, but her character did not add really that much for me at all. She did have one really nice quote though when she calls the villain an excessive exhibitionist. The younger audience in my showing did not get the meaning of that obviously, but I found that truly funny. Charly Hübner, the main antagonist Kakmann from the first film is also back and he is just so much more interesting than Olli Schulz' (from the terrible TV show "Circus Halligalli") stereotypical villain character who sounded like an unfunny version of Otto Waalkes, maybe also because Hübner has simply much more experience ("Lives of Others") and far more talent ("Eltern").The film has some witchcraft and not too much goes wrong with Bibi's magic this time, maybe only the time travelling parts. There is not as much horse action as in the first film. Basically occasionally some riding and a very prestigious horse gets (almost) stolen, but that's it. The humor is mostly pretty harmless, but still successful, especially with children. What about the raccoon soup and almost killing a hedgehog parts? That sucked. I will forgive Buck for that though and also for including that disgusting diarrhea scene as the kids surely loved the grossness of it.As a whole I would still say that the first movie is slightly superior, but this one here is not a bad film by any means. Also the fact that one of the most successful directors and actors from Germany, Detlev Buck, makes a sequel to a kids movie shows the prestige these children's films are currently enjoying here in Germany. You will hardly find one of Germany's most notable actors these days that has not yet appeared in a film primarily suited for younger audiences. "Bibi and Tina 2" does not have as many stars as some other kids films do, but nonetheless the cast is decent and there are some cameos from popular people included (Schweighöfer, Müller, Peschel). So yeah, kids movies keep booming, audiences love them and we will be getting sequel to "Fünf Freunde" and "Rico and Oskar" soon and maybe also a third "Bibi&Tina" film. Who knows. The fact that there was not even a year between the first and second shows that it is likely to happen.
