This movie isn't anything special. The story and villain wasn't compelling, and the sound quality made bits confusing and hard to follow. At least the animation was certainly better than I thought. The romantic chemistry between the boys was enjoyable to watch, and pretty much saves the movie. Considering it's for kids, it's a fairly acceptable and average adaptation from the books.
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junissasophon6 April 2020
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nogodnomasters4 December 2017Tony and his family are vacationing in the Black Forest of Germany visiting castles. Meanwhile Rookery is hunting friendly vampires. Tony helps 13 year old vampire Rudolph against the bigotry of humans. Also includes a near love story.
Also a few lines from Lauren Bacall. Good 3D graphics. The story was a bit lame, but then again it is for kids. -
This animated movie actually turned out much better than I had anticipated. But then again, I had very little expectations to it, because I hadn't heard about it prior to finding it by blind luck.
I sat down to watch this with my, then 7 year old, son. And we were both quiet adequately entertained.
The story is entertaining and quite well written. However, if one is to point any critical fingers, then there weren't as many laughs as one could have hoped for. But still a great movie nonetheless.
The CGI animation was quite nice with lots of detail in every scene. And that definitely lifted the movie up quite a notch in terms of it being enjoyable and watchable.
"The Little Vampire" is certainly a movie that is quite suitable for the kids, without it being too much. There are no horror elements to it, so it is quite child-friendly. -
I loved as a kid the Little Vampire books by Angela Sommer-Bodenburg. This is a free adaptation that doesn't really follow the novels, except some of the basic ideas, like the friendship between the mortal boy and the vampire boy and how traditional and old-fashioned the vampire family was. I felt the story here was weaker than in the novels. They tried to fit it too much to the standard action/adventure animated film model. I don't know, maybe a more faithful adaptation would have been too slow-paced for the intended audience, but it lost part of the character and individuality of the story., although some of it remains The adults were extremely passive/ineffectual for no good reason other than allowing the child characters to shine.
The funny parts were not so funny, including several scatological jokes involving cow poo.
The animation was basic. I liked the character designs, but the movement and backgrounds was not that good, compared with other recent animated movies. There was a lot of flying around by the vampire characters that maybe would look better in 3D (I saw this on TV).
All in all, an entertaining enough movie that should please child viewers, but I couldn't shake off the feeling that it might have been better. Rating: 6/10. -
SilverOrlov11 December 2017If the cartoon touches on a serious topic (like "lets go to fry these vampires"), then it's not just a children's cartoon, with farewell nonsense or flat humor (in the adult's understanding), but in this cartoon the level of humor and the behavior of the characters leaves much to be desired. And honestly, I believe that showing children "stupid adults" or "stupid villains" is wrong: Don't teach children a low-level understanding about people, they CAN understand a lot of things, just give them a chance. Such cartoons don't do that.
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ganymedes198513 November 2019So cute and safe it's missing the horror-vampire theme completely, but then there's the friendship/bromance level that makes it all worth watching :)
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I came here to find out why, turns out he was voiced by a woman. It's just grating and got on my nerves quick. Rest of the movie was ok, if they would have gotten an actual boy to play a boy, would have been better.
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wardhorneman-9244222 November 2017I Actually liked this movie, The fact that some people think its bad because it would tend your kids to the dark side should put more time in parenting and less in writing reviews. the story isn't really strong but fun to watch at. Beware to teach your kid that this movie is fiction and make sure to have a great time watching it. remember no tonics and sweets that is bad for your kid ;)
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stumacchillan26 July 2020Weak characters and poor dialogue, terrible all round. The only positive is the animation
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I went to watch the Little Vampire without much expectation. As a matter of fact, the moment I saw the opening scenes, I said to myself "I don't like it". But I spoke too soon when I saw the picture unfold. The animation is pretty modern, I thought.
I'll try and retell the story in a way to me that makes sense, but without giving out specific details. So, beware, this is laden full of spoilers.
**BEGIN SPOILER**
In the beginning the theme appears it might appeal to Harry Potter fans -- and I am not a Harry Potter fan. A particular character captures my attention, and ought to capture the attention of the audience. This character, our prime protagonist, Rudolph draws attention because his social behavior differs from the rest; radical individualism I suppose?
We learn that he is trying to break free from tradition; a tradition set for him to keep him safe. He wants change. He wants to grow. His older brother Gregory taking that charge of change, Rudolph is left to witness the price of breaking free from tradition, and soon the entire clan is unsafe; a certainly unfamiliar situation.
In order for Rudolph to get used to the unfamiliar situation he meets a boy Tony Thompson, a vampire enthusiast by accident. Rudolph also spends a lot of time flying outside, something his father has forbidden him to do. Although the difference between him flying then outside for fun, and his role in flying in the movie has its purpose to help the story move on. Rudolph also spends more time enlightening his family, kind of like the philosopher of the Plato's cave allegory.
Rudolph may have not seen it, but he learns a lot from Tony Thompson, and thereby help Rudolph achieve growth he earlier wanted. He learns stuff like "cool" and "sick", words which Rudolph at first takes too literally. Meanwhile, Tony Thompson's parents makes comments throughout the movie how Tony Thompson is growing and being mature. The friendship of Tony and Rudolph stimulates their own respective growths.
Rudolph may have gained so much growth, but in the process, he lost his home. It's a historic home of 300 years or more, thus the lost of it could be in human terms mean the destruction of heritage sites. Contrast the historic home being destroyed in seconds by modern technology.
With the help of Tony however, Rudolph and the clan were able to revitalize vamparism by taking over a Castle-Inn. To me, this is rather sad, because the couple who owns the Castle-Inn appear to be honest Christians. The owners however rarely have guests, so it made sense to Tony for the vampires to occupy it completely. Caveat for the vampires however is that the Castle-Inn has too much garlic.
With the vampirism revitalized by taking the Castle-Inn, the only difference with this sort of vamparism is that no humans shall be victimized; sucking blood from livestock (cows) suffice.
**END SPOILER**
The film thematically presents cultures (Romanian Transylvanian and German culture) and its interaction to technologies (Maney's technological ingenuity being used and abused by Rookery's zeal to destroy Vampires which bordered on unethical; if it meant killing a human child to stop Vampires, Rookery would do so).
There also seems to be some sort of Romeo (humans) and Juliette (vampires) misunderstanding between humans and vampires. Rookery, hotel owners, and Tony's parents don't perceive vampires too well, except for Tony Thompson himself. The entire vampire clan maybe mainly Rudolph's dad and mom, don't like "mortals". Rudolph initially didn't trust mortals neither. The German uncles of Rudolph however were more friendly to mortals, having waved at Tony in the beginning.
The movie is funny. Lost in translation situations between Rudolph and Tony are funny. Maney and Rookery interactions are funny. Rookery trying in vain to capture but only to get defeated is funny (i.e. when Tony switched the alligator clips for a circuit, to destroy the source). -
Kamurai253 August 2020Awful watch, won't watch and can't recommend, even for younger audiences.
The best thing about this movie is how awful the villain is, it's like if Van Helsing was a jerk and vampires were all nice.
The sister is at least interesting, wrestling between cultures, but that is immediately trumped by child vampires. One of the most horrific versions of vampires is trapping someone in a 13 year old body for centuries, and they play it off as a laugh, as if he is 13.
In some versions, vampires are biological enough that they birth, giving a "pure" blood line ("Blade"), or can mate with humans under the right conditions, but either that is a Dampir or a human. It is VERY unclear what is happening here so I'm left with this clan regularly indoctrinates children into their vampire society to mimic human culture.
Then we have species jumping, where an animal gets infected (watch "Bunnicula" for a better version).
And then we have the dual homo erotic adventures, and I'm not even against it, but it is weirder than "Top Gun", at least it made sense those two were into each other. But the mortal is clearly into the vampire boy, and they write in the crush on the girl to normalize him to the audience, but it looks more like he's into both.
And the poor ginger guy, his boyfriend wakes him up in the middle of the night to go on this adventure and doesn't appreciate him the whole time.
This is clearly made by people that had a lot of money to make it well, and had a clear list of demands. It was given to a writer than saw it was garbage and clearly beneath him and decided to show the producers what they did. So, because he was good enough to, made this horrible thing he was asked to do, but in the least acceptable way that would be accepted and still be good enough not to sink his career. And I'm sure it still got noted to death.
Just steer away from this one. Vampires shouldn't be lovable characters in the same way humans are, they can stand on their own. Bring back powerful blood drinking characters. -
I loved this movie and the cute romance between the 2 boys. to the makers of this movie, we would love to see movies like these in the future. keep up the great work.
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dalbei11 October 2021I found this movie on Netflix while trying to find a movie for my daughter and get past the blood sucking that's off camera it not violent. But it obviously a kids movie. And it has mood swings like a lady pregnant with a baby one moment a character is happy and then one moment he tried to attack him. And the other he's trying to be nice the other he's being a dick. So to a kid how has no care of what he's watching it's great, good kids movie but I am 23 so its not as pleasant to watch am not that old but old enough to not like this movie. But my 7 year old daughter loves it.
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I am pretty sure if you think about this movies theme, you would probably come to the same conclusion, the writers root for criminals and despise authority. First of all, Vampires survive how? Feeding off of others, right? Usually it doesn't end well for the victim/dinner, right? So I think we can immediately dispense with PC nonsense and clearly state our hero is a blood sucking type of personality, only in this case, it is literal. So how am I supposed to sympathize with the hero when I know that if he wins the day, I lose? Answer, not possible. Silly premise, yes, I know, it's only animation. Still, Holly-weird types are constantly trying to influence people, especially the young. I wouldn't bother, I gave it 3 instead of 1 just to be generous.
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westsideschl11 September 2018Positives: Negatives: 1. A movie mostly for kids and they offer no subtitles! I guess teaching to read or to help those who have difficulties hearing is not important. 2. Not creative storytelling - been done many times before. 3. Animation quality was poor, e.g. all backgrounds were static painted such as clouds, grass, branches, human hair nothing alive & moving. The exception was the basic, in-the-foreground, human body movements were natural.
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nigelrarnold18 February 2019Horrendous sound quality! They used some kind of filter especially for the scenes in the castle with the vampire clan. So difficult to make out the dialogue. All levels wrong. Shame as otherwise it seemed a decent enough movie for the kids.
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rbajjgaff30 March 2018This is one of the worst movies I have endured on our family friday night movie session. It is dark the whole way through. The characters are either: gruff and mean or weak and submissive. The animation is good but the rest is terrible. I think my kids will be scarred for life from this film. Terrible
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anonymousforyoureyes2 April 2020Hi lovelies,
The movie is amazing. From the beautiful accents to the blossoming love and friendship between the characters. It was absolutely amazing to watch it. The storyline is exciting and I like the dark theme surrounding the movie. I would love for the movie to have a sequel. The voice actors did an amazing job!
This is a must see movie!
Kind Regards,
Suman :) -
nygirlyankeesever25 November 2017I grew up watching the live action 2000 film and this one is very charming in its own way. The is a German animation(not Hollywood as some may say)that has been dubbed beautifully! The animation is done very well, smooth and in my opinion better than some modern bigger budget animations. Story is cute and gets you in the Halloween mood. Nice giggles here and there, nice throw backs to the original ,voice acting spot on, overall great kids(make sure your kid knows whats fantasy or at least watch it first and or with them.) film is over great and simple. Can't wait to put it on my Halloween line up next year!
*SPOLIER?!*SPOLIER?!*SPOLIER?!*
Some people can't enjoy a simple story. The "authority" that the main protagonist are "fighting" are vampire hunters who are trying to kill the whole vampire protagonist's clan. Through out the film it also states that they haven't drank the human's red stuff in a long time, so they probably drink a blood substitute like a modern vegan vampire(tho they did drink cows blood, but it added a cute touch for vampire cow in the story). If you don't like cute Halloween/vampire movies that show teamwork, acceptance of others and their flaws, simple kid story plots or good animation...then stick to veggie tales. -
I know this sounds pretty insane and ridiculous but that's my opinion and to make it more insane. I never liked the 2000 movie like, Vampires turning into humans? I'm sorry but I don't think no vampire ever wants to turn into human.
Anyway, I like the characters, the animation is good, I like the little jokes, the voice actors did a good job
I give this 10 stars!!! -
The 3D stereoscopic effects are just perfect, why this film is not more well known is a complete mystery to me, I find it very sad that a film that has so much creative talent on display has not reached the audience it deserves I highly recommend that you seek out is incredible animated film, even adults will love it.
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Sandra-durand8027 July 2021This was a fun movie! My family and I enjoyed it very much. It was so funny!
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elisewillette21 September 2022Hello parents and Rotten Tomato critics. I'd like to start off by saying, that this is an animated revival movie of an already very underground and niche kids movie. I saw a Rotten Tomato critic say that the convoluted storyline will fly over the heads of kids. Who the hell calls a kids movie convoluted, what kind of person does that? I had to look up the godamn word and I'm an adult. The movie has such refreshing character design, it reminds me almost of the movie "Daddy, Im a zombie" Which is such a good classic to me. To whoever is leaving harsh reviews on this movie, deserves a fat thumbs down.
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RosanaBotafogo18 July 2022How cute, I was more lazy to watch this animation, and it was cuter than I imagined, it lost a little breath in the third act, but it conquers and makes our hearts warm with cute messages and the characters totally passionate....
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jadewolthuis23 January 2022Okay, first of all have you seen the COW? That was pretty awesome, Tony and his vampire boyfriend trek through the woods of germany (I LOVE GERMANY!!) and are chased around by a gruesome twosome of attempted child murderers, while i do not condone their actions. In surviving and escaping these two, the boys formed a sort of subtextual romantic tension that is clear to literally everyone who sees the movie. It's sort of sweet, the movie feels the need to show that Tony is not in fact gay, by making him like a girl. But this is to distract from the fact the homies truly are in love. I'm watching this from the perspective of just some person watching random dutch movies, but i'm sure kids would like it too, it's not too impressive, but it impressed me with it's stunning cow.