SoTrumpBelieve
Must See Movie...
Lachlan Coulson
This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.
Guillelmina
The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.
Phoenix Star
First off, you absolutely need to watch this movie in German (with some good knowledge in this language to boot), because A LOT of it will be lost in translation otherwise. It's a specific kind of German humor, one that's definitely not everyone's cup of tea, especially since a couple of scenes involve humongous amount of poop, vomit and other grossities. But underneath it's crude exterior lies a clever exaggeration of real life situations based on the authors, Rötger "Brösel" Feldmann, experience.Take for example when Werner is at work as a heating, air-conditioning and pluming mechanic/installer. I myself have worked in the same field, not the same job, but I've got to know a lot of people that did the same work as the characters and I recognized a lot of traits and mannerism from the movie. There were a lot of stuff going on that immediately felt familiar to me - of course in a exaggerated and comical way. One of the big ones is Meister Röhrich, Werners boss. This is the character that steals the show. The master apparently knows everything better yet is so clumsy that he always ends up causing literally disasters wherever he works at. This alone would be funny enough, but he speaks in a such strange voice and dialect, says a lot of weird job-specific terms, that it's ingenious. And would you know that he is based on a real person that refused to allow them to use his name? Then there is the marketplace and football, the technical review of the choppers, the hospital visit and other every-once-in-a-while situations I'm sure everyone has come across and it's always fun to see with what Brösel comes up with to parody them.As you may already know the movie has parts in it that are not animated and filmed live. These scenes are largely considered to be boring and everyone seems to skip them. To be honest, that's what I did too in the past, but over the time they kinda grew on me. Sure, they are amateurish, the humor consist mostly of burping and catchphrases and they generally pale in comparison to the animated material, but they are fun in a so-bad-its-good way and at least they seem to be self-aware about it. When it comes down to the animation itself, there is little to complain about. It's not as fluent or sharp as e.g. Disney works and even a bit inconsistent and sketchy in the later parts of the movie, but overall just very well executed, with a good sense for physics and a big part why the slapstick in this movie works so well. There always are small things to discover that you didn't notice the first time. It's creative and full of ideas all the time.The voice-acting was superbly done. Everyone fits perfectly and it's hard not to notice the fun the staff had while delivering their lines. Andi Feldmann easily deserves an award for his role as the eccentric Meister Röhrich.Werner: Beinhart is pretty much the movie equivalent of a caricature painting. It's about the small things in real-life but exaggerated in a hilarious and creative manner. It is raw, unconcerned fun and it shows what a real person Rötger Feldmann is. It's just a shame that none of the sequels managed to get even close to it's level.
t_atzmueller
The first „Werner"-comics had a phenomenonal success, when first published in 1981: the drawings where simple, yet very articulate, the text written colloquially, kept in so-called "Plattdeutsch" (a dialect spoken on the northern shores of Germany) and the adventures of main-character "Werner" centred around riding bikes, fixing bikes, hanging out with his rocker pals and drinking Beer. "Werner" was rough, "Werner" was rude and most importantly, "Werner" was as authentic as it gets. "Werners" creator, Brösel (translated as "bread-crumb"), being a biker himself, takes his stories from real life, adoption his own youth-experiences and his clique of friends into comic-form.Expectations where high when the film "Werner", at the height of the Werner-boom, hit cinemas in 1990 and lining up before the cinemas often turned into a party, fans congregating with bottles of "Bölkstoff" (Beer), loudly repeating catchphrases like, "Sag mal jemand Bescheid". Alas, their enthusiasm usually went down a notch, after the animated intro faded to real-live.So, what was Brösel thinking? We don't know, but my two theories are, that a) he tried to emulate "Who framed Roger Rabbit" and b) he thought it would be good fun, him and his pals appearing as themselves in a movie.The live action sequences are rather forgettable – Brösel obviously has no talent to act, the jokes really aren't funny and if one can give them one merit, it's that we get to see the real-life inspirations for many of the "Werner" characters, all played and based on Brösel's friends.The animation is somewhere between the works of Ralph Bakshi and Belgium shock-cartoonist Pischa; simple, rudimentary yet keeping in suit with the comics. Brösel has taken some of the most popular stories (Werner in hospital, as apprentice or Werner's football game) and fuses them the real live scenes.A highlight was casting Klaus Büchner, iconic singer of cult Rock band "Torfrock", as the voice of "Werner"; many readers had envisioned his unforgettable timbre as the voice of "Werner", long before there was even talk about a film. "Torfrock", having reunited for this project, also supplied the excellent soundtrack (if you're into Biker Rock, that is), containing a number of songs that would later become hits in Germany.A word of warning to non-German speakers (or even German speakers, who're not familiar with the northern dialect): it is virtually impossible to translate most of the slang or catchphrases, and if it were possible, well, they wouldn't be funny anymore. Or how would you translate "Beinhart"? "Leg-hard", which could be applied to bikers, choppers, bier or the general situation.Being a "Werner" fan, giving points isn't easy, but I can only give it a meagre 6 out of 10, mainly due to the live-action segments.
jon broster
I saw this at the cinema in Germany, when I was a student there, then spent several years trying to find it on video. I love it.***MINOR SPOILERS***It is 2 stories in 1.First the animation. Werner is a North German plumber whose only real interests are motorcycles and beer. He hates the police, authority and TUV (vehicle testing department). Here we get to see Werner: commentating on a football match in a marketplace, where the shoppers are the players (only they don't know it!), being bed-bathed by fat nurses and also Werner's boss flushing his own head down a blocked toilet!!! 9/10Then the live action. Total and utter waste of time, fast forward through it, fetch a drink, do not even bother opening your eyes for it. 0/10 (it really is that bad and unfunny)Even if you skip through the live action, there is still over an hour of animation.A word of caution, the accent is very strong (from Kiel in the North, near to Denmark) I have a degree in German, and there are a few lines that have defied my best efforts for years!!There are now 4 sequels (which are all animation)
wernersen
I´m half Dane and half German so i know the language so because of that I understand the movie and I think its great! the animation is crappy but the humor is good. I agree that the scenes that are not animation is boring so i usualy jump over those scenes!
