"Die Konferenz der Tiere" or "Animals United" is an animated film directed by Reinhard Klooss and Holger Tappe. They are joined by writer Oliver Huzly and these three also worked on new version of Urmel movies (Augsburg Puppenkiste) before this film. It is about a group of wild animals including meerkats, turtles, rhinos, monkeys, giraffes, a cock and many more who struggle due to lack of water. This is the central plot, but I felt the film succeeded much more with its sub-plots. I thought the two old turtles were the highlight of the film. The scenes with their deaths and the comets was just amazingly sad. And the voices fit them nicely too. I also liked the monkey who sort-of was with the humans initially. I did not really like the cock, even if I love Christoph Maria Herbst and I could have done without this character. In general, occasionally, it felt as if the movie could have been better if they had simply included less animal characters and maybe elaborated a bit more on these. The small background stories did not work so well for everybody as they did with the turtles. For example, the whole rhino-buffalo fight did nothing really for me.
I did not know too many from the voice cast, really only Kalkofe and Herbst (Wixxxer reunion) and I think I heard about Fritsch too in the past. The English dub has the great Stephen Fry which should be reason enough for you to watch it if you're American or British. The father-son relationship between the meerkats was a great idea and I wish they elaborated a bit more on it, maybe by telling us about the two and how they lived together in the past. When the young meerkat is happy in the end that daddy saved the day it felt a bit out of place. Such a shame they did not develop this idea further. It could have lifted the film up a lot. The insect plague at some point almost had something biblical just like the whole animal gathering scenes and how they stayed in peace with each other for a while to find a solution to their thirst problem. The march to the UN building was okay as well.
I think as a whole this film may be more suitable for younger audiences, but I believe thanks to its morale it can also make a good watch for adults who like animated movies. I don't think it is half as bad as some people say it is. Some animals were more interesting than others sure, but there were no extremely negative standouts and same goes for the animation. German singer Xavier Naidoo does a good song for the closing credits, but I am a bit biased here I guess as I like his voice in general. I thought the song fit the film nicely. On a completely random note, the final scene at the closing credits with the mole reminded me a bit of the same from "Monsters University". Anyway, solid movie. Recommended.
I did not know too many from the voice cast, really only Kalkofe and Herbst (Wixxxer reunion) and I think I heard about Fritsch too in the past. The English dub has the great Stephen Fry which should be reason enough for you to watch it if you're American or British. The father-son relationship between the meerkats was a great idea and I wish they elaborated a bit more on it, maybe by telling us about the two and how they lived together in the past. When the young meerkat is happy in the end that daddy saved the day it felt a bit out of place. Such a shame they did not develop this idea further. It could have lifted the film up a lot. The insect plague at some point almost had something biblical just like the whole animal gathering scenes and how they stayed in peace with each other for a while to find a solution to their thirst problem. The march to the UN building was okay as well.
I think as a whole this film may be more suitable for younger audiences, but I believe thanks to its morale it can also make a good watch for adults who like animated movies. I don't think it is half as bad as some people say it is. Some animals were more interesting than others sure, but there were no extremely negative standouts and same goes for the animation. German singer Xavier Naidoo does a good song for the closing credits, but I am a bit biased here I guess as I like his voice in general. I thought the song fit the film nicely. On a completely random note, the final scene at the closing credits with the mole reminded me a bit of the same from "Monsters University". Anyway, solid movie. Recommended.