Otto er et næsehorn (2013) Directed by Kenneth Kainz

The only time I ever read books was when I still was a young kid. And yes indeed, 'Otto is a rhinoceros' was one of those books, along with a whole bunch of other Ole Lund Kirkegaard novels. Not that I remember much about any of them but some of his books were some of my favorite ones as a young kid. Guess I liked the fantasy and imaginative elements, as well as the young main characters in it, who usually were anti-heroes. So does this movie manage to capture the same kind of fun and imaginative elements as the Ole Lund Kirkegaard novels? Absolutely not, in my opinion!

This animated movie is bad, just plain bad! There is no other way around it. The biggest problem with it was that I felt incredibly bored with it. And if I'm already bored with it, just imaging how a kid with, for instance, the attention span of a 8-year old is going to feel. Neither the characters or any of the events are much fun to watch and it really isn't a very funny or cute animated kids movie either.

It doesn't feel like there is all that much story in this movie, which really is due to the fact that it isn't ever a very engaging one. There is not a good enough main plot line and just a bunch of random events instead. There is never a good build up or flow to anything and It's a very cold and distant feeling movie, in which we never get to know any of the characters or get a good sense of their relationships to each other. New characters pop up every 10 other minutes and also suddenly disappear out of the movie again, after a short while already.

Despite the fantasy premise of the movie, it never becomes a truly imaginative or fantasy filled movie as well. By all means, this should have been a fun and almost magical kind of kids movie but the fact that it's not is absolutely inexcusable. Here you have a movie with a giant yellow rhino, do something fun wit it! But the movie unfortunately has no idea what to do with its fun and very imaginative sounding premise.

The animations themselves are also far from impressive. I admit that its look matches the atmosphere and illustrations of the Ole Lund Kirkegaard pretty well but other than that, the overall look of it is far too cheap. Characters move around stiffly and nothing hardly ever moves in the background. It's the kind of animation that would be OK for a weekly animated TV series but just not for a theatrical release!

I just can't see how anyone could enjoy this movie, neither young kids (which this movie is obviously for) or adults.

4/10

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