Werner - Volles Rooäää!!! (1999)

Intense, gripping, stylish and poignant

Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

Or I could also have called this review "Pass auf, jetzt kommt ne Extranummer." from a quote of the movie. The third installment of the Werner movie series is still a joyride. It is inferior to the brilliant first, but as good as the other parts, even if it did not won the Golden Screen for big commercial success at the box office like films 1 and 2 did. The only thing I disliked a bit was how Günzelsen's folk (the main antagonists) were depicted with Nazi references. They went with one main antagonist again just like in the earlier films (the King, Nobelschröder) and I like that approach usually in a movie. I don't think political humor fits the Werner films particularly. They're just too absurd and silly in a good way) for comedic approaches like these.Anyway, the film was released 10 years after the very first and it starts in very harmonic manner although motorbike noise quickly ensues. Director Gerhard Hahn worked on Bibi Blocksberg, Benjamin Blümchen and Asterix films before, so he is quite experienced with animation. The Werner films, however, are not particularly aimed at children as the ones I mentioned before. He also wrote the film together with the Feldmann brothers, who are behind the Werner franchise with both doing voice acting as well. Just like the second film and unlike the first, "Werner - Volles Rooäää!!!" is animated from start to finish again. No live action sequences here. Jan Fedder (fittingly with his Northern German origin) and Lilo Wanders may be the most known actors from the voice cast. The film is, just like the others, not particularly long and does not reach the 80-minute mark. One of my favorite characters in this movie was the aggressive, ginger-bearded Dieter, the head of the motorbike gang, who is always angry and scared of nobody. He was lots of fun and would have deserved a couple scenes more.And my favorite from the whole franchise, Meister Röhrich plays a vital part again. When you see the giant machine near the end and Röhrich around, you will know this is gonna be a huuuuge explosion and complete disaster. The first who flies up is Günzelsen's girl while sitting on the toilet. Just like the other Werner films (Borsti's rescue), this one also has a happy end when the biker bar is finally saved from the evil property shark. Secret weapon Röhrich. The epilogue in the hospital with Günzelsen and him is very funny again as well. I recommend watching this film if politically incorrect humor and animation are exactly your cup of tea.

The third cinematic installment of German cult cartoon figure Werner does, I have to say, not live up to the second film, yet really, it's not as bad as part one. The story goes: After doing a bit of alibi motorcycling in the introduction, Werner, Andi and their rocker friends discover that nasty building tycoon Günzelsen is planning to tear down their entire neighborhood. Of course, they do what they can to prevent it, and even involve Werner's boss, Röhrich, in their fight against Günzelsen. Suffice to say that this involves a bad impersonation of Hitler, Neo-Nazi feces and an apocalyptic sewer explosion. And that's really all there is to it, while the second film had stringent story around which it was constructed, this one simply lacks rigidity in telling the story.As far as technology goes, the film is without flaw: combining conventional animation and state of the art computer technology, it looks really nifty, even better than hand-drawn part two.But stars, toilet-humor and good computer effects alone don't make a good movie, as Hollywood found out long before.The film really has it's moments, but they are too few and to far in between. Had the story been told in half the time, the film would have been great. The way it is, it is watchable, but that's it.