Continuing forever with animated characters we all know, with a new adventure every time, is of course useful if the cinema cash registers keep ringing. However, sometimes a new animation family is very refreshing. The Drekkies for example. They stink in Dutch cinemas from today.
So a new movie crowd. With that comes this German production The Drekkies eligible for Metros Movie Review of the Week. A film aimed at children, but great to go with the whole family.
The story of the Drekkies
What kind of creatures are Drekkies (in English they are called The Uglies)… Subway honestly don’t know. Friendly creatures anyway, flying around on an equally nice drooling dragon. Two things are beyond dispute: Drekkies stink. And they eat garbage. They don’t like clean things like the laundry that flutters nice and fresh on the line.
The Drekkies are looking for a new place to live in this film. They are everywhere rejected by the people for their stench and yet some otherworldly appearance. The animation family ends up in Stinkiestad, a nice quiet town that suffers from a large smelly rubbish dump. Tourists let it down by the stand. The mayor’s son Max (nerd type with glasses, plays the cello) is a craft talent. Together with professor Foamkop and his niece Lotte, he tries to solve the smell problem with a machine. However, that goes into the soup.
Saving sweet stinkers
But then: there are The Drekkies! They are the solution, Max immediately sees. Just eat that garbage. However, his own mother and the unscrupulous contractor Hamer have very different plans. They want to clear the waste mountain – the new home of De Drekkies – and build a large and sparkling wellness center on the site. You guessed it what question there is in this animated film The Drekkies then the answer must be: can the sweet stinkers be saved from their doom?
The Drekkies on their dragon.Photo: Wonderwerk
The Drekkies is simply funny, sweet and fun. Mr Hamer’s clumsy construction workers who all look the same: funny. The baby Drekkie (with destructive throw): sweet. Drekkies names like Smoezel and Smurrie: nice.
Touching, that might be appropriate if one overarching word is being searched for. But has the story of The Drekkies no morals?, I hear you ask. Yes (‘recycling garbage is good’), but that moral is never intrusive.
Max and his mother, the mayor’s wife.Photo: Wonderwerk
Dutch voices: Matheu and Stefania
The most famous voices in the Dutch version of The Drekkies are from Matthew Hinzen (Max) and Stefania (Lotte). Hinzen starred in the Hazes film Blood Sweat Tears the young André and played the leading role in the musical Ciske the Rat. We know Stefania from Utrecht as a presenter of the Kids Top 20 at NPO Zapp. But not only that of course. Stefania did for Greece with Last Dance participated in the Eurovision Song Contest in Rotterdam and took a nice tenth place.
According to another medium, which viewed the Dutch version, the Flemish votes are in The Drekkies the ones next to Hinzen and Stefania are a bit hard to follow. Subway cannot judge that, because we are presented with the English version.
Rating out 5: 3.
You can read Metro’s movie review of the week every Wednesday around 6 p.m. New titles always appear in Dutch cinemas on Thursdays (occasionally on Wednesdays, such as De Drekkies). Reporter Erik Jonk chooses one every week.
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Film review De Drekkies: nice, such a new smelly animation family