Ooops! Die Arche ist weg… (2015)

Ooops! Die Arche ist weg…: Directed by Toby Genkel, Sean McCormack. With Dermot Magennis, Callum Maloney, Tara Flynn, Ava Connolly. It’s the end of the world. A flood is coming. Luckily for Dave and his son Finny, a couple of clumsy Nestrians, an Ark has been built to save all animals. But as it turns out, Nestrians aren’t allowed. Sneaking on board with the involuntary help of Hazel and her daughter Leah, two Grymps, they think they’re safe. Until the curious kids fall off the Ark. Now Finny and Leah struggle to survive the flood and hungry predators and attempt to reach the top of a mountain, while Dave and Hazel must put aside their differences, turn the Ark around and save their kids. It’s definitely not going to be smooth sailing.

“This animated film was originally produced in Europe and released in Germany and the Low Countries. There it was titled, in the respective tongues, u0026quot;Ooops! Noah is Gone.u0026quot; It goes by u0026quot;Two by Twou0026quot; in the U. K. and by u0026quot;All Creatures Big and Small in the U. S. The DVD I purchased has the cover with the title in large letters as u0026quot;GODu0026#39;S Little Creatures.u0026quot; The apparent inability of the producers to come up with one title may be due to the confusion within the film itself.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eOn the DVD cover, it has a quote from the Dove Foundation that calls it u0026quot;a charming story of forgiveness.u0026quot; By a real stretch of the imagination, one might come up with forgiveness as a part of a mixed bag of themes. But I doubt any youngsters, for whom this film must clearly have been the target audience, would grasp that. Other promotions and reviews have referred to this film as a comic tale about the animals that didnu0026#39;t make it onto Noahu0026#39;s Ark, an animal adventure, and who knows what all else.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThe big problem with this film is itu0026#39;s connection at all with the story of Noah and the ark from the Bible. Any kids in the audience who know anything about that story at all would immediately be confused. Either the writers and producers didnu0026#39;t know the Bible story themselves, or they didnu0026#39;t care if the story made sense. In which case, all kids who know the story would find this confusing to the point of distraction, and dislike for the movie. One doesnu0026#39;t like to think that there might have been another purpose or design of the film – that is, intentional distortion of a Bible story. Then one might wonder and question for what end or purpose.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eAs an adult, I found the mixture of fable, with the Bible story, and cute animation with fictitious animals to be dumb and dull. But, in some ways it does tell even young children that these are the u0026quot;dumbu0026quot; animals. Finny and Leah think Obesey is a slug. Finny and Dave donu0026#39;t even know their real habitat. Nor do Leah and Hazel. Apparently, the film didnu0026#39;t do too well anywhere – with the possible exception of China. I have no idea how much the Chinese box office was in American dollars or British pounds or Euros. But when a movie source such as IMDb only lists the box office take from China and nowhere else, I take that as a sure sign of a flop.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eMy three stars are solely for the cartoon work of the artists. I watched this to the end just out of curiosity to see if it had a couple of species of animals make it onto the ark that didnu0026#39;t have partners with which to copulate and preserve their species. Thatu0026#39;s the kind of question that would naturally come to mind for an adult – and even most children above age seven who watch this mixed bag of Biblical story, science, extinction, fantasy creatures, and cartoon adventure. And at the end, itu0026#39;s obvious that Hazel and Leah will be the last of the Grymps.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThis definitely is not in the league of u0026quot;Ice Ageu0026quot; and the number of similar and sequel interesting and entertaining animated films. Best not to waste oneu0026#39;s money on this film, even from the dollar bin of dvds.”