The Amazing Wiplala

Hi there some of you may remember that last year I reviewed a bunch of movies from TIFF (Toronto International Film Festival) Kids as an official reviewer. This year I am doing the same thing. If you want to see any of these movies they are playing April 7th through 19th at the TIFF Bell Light Box. So lets kick off these films with The Amazing Wiplala.

We start in Amsterdam where we meet our main characters a boy named Johannes (Sasha Mylanus), his sister Nella (Kee Ketelaar), and their father (Peter Paul Muller). They are all very distant with each other but one day Johannes thinks he sees a Leprechaun and he tries to catch it but it is not a Leprechaun it is a tiny person named Wiplala (Geza Weisz) who has magic powers such as freezing Johannes' cat Fly. Johannes tries to get Wiplala to unfreeze the cat but Wiplala only ends up turning the cat to stone. Johannes takes care of Wiplala while Nella and his father are out looking for Fly. But Nella finds out about Wiplala and promises to keep a secret. Later that day their friend Arhtur Hollidee (Paul Kooij) finds Wiplala but Wiplala gets scared and turns Arthur into a giant statue. That night the father takes them to a fancy restaraunt but Johannes doesn't want to leave Wiplala by himself so he takes him to the restaurant. But Wiplala turns the family's oysters into sushi and hot dogs and they get in trouble with the manager. Wiplala shrinks them down to his size and they escape the restaurant and spend the night in a grocery store.


Wiplala says that there is an entrance to his world through their house and that another one of his people can make them back to normal size. The father sees on TV that the giant statue of Arthur has drawn quite a bit of attention and the city says it will be demolished if who ever made it doesn't step forward. They see that a boy in the shop has a remote control car so they steal it and use it to escape the shop and ride away. They crash into a dog and the father fractures his arm. They go to a hospital where they find a sick child named Lotje (Gabbi Lieve van Waveren) who helps them by showing them to a doctor who takes seeing small people surprisingly well and fixes the fathers arm. But the very next morning they find out that the statue of Arthur will be destroyed the next morning so they need to think of a good plan. They order a pizza and they try to sneak on the pizza delivery boy's bike. But only Wiplala gets on and the rest are left behind. The next morning Wiplala flies in on a pigeon and tries to fly to their house before Arthur is destroyed.

***SPOILER ALERT STOP HERE IF YOU DON'T WANT THE END RUINED***

The pigeon crashes and Wiplala brings a giant statue of the Atlas (Hans Kesting) to life. This scene doesn't serve much purpose to the plot other then some funny lines and some cliche motivational speech for Wiplala. The Atlas' speech gives Wiplala the will to un-shrink the family and they manage to get to their home and they turn Arthur back to normal. Wiplala says he must return home but before going he gives Johannes his jacket (which looks kind of like Michael Jackson's "Thriller" jacket the more I look at it). Everyone has a happy new year (oh yeah this is kind of a Christmas movie I forgot to mention). The End.

***SPOILERS OVER KEEP READING***

This movie has some good points and some bad points. The effects are actually really good and some of the scenes are pretty funny. But the plot is really cliched and feels like it was made in the 1990's instead of recently. This definitely one of those cases where the trailer is much better then the movie. But if it does sound like your kind of thing I guess you could like it but I personally didn't like it but there are still a lot more to go and I'm sure they will be better. See you next time I've got more TIFF to review