The School of Magical Animals 2

In the Winterstein School, the celebrations for the 250th school anniversary are coming up. For this, Miss Cornfield's (Nadja Uhl) class is to rehearse a musical about the school's founder, for which Ida (Emilia Maier) has written some great songs. But it's not just that the principal (Justus von Dohnányi) insists that his version of the story be performed. Although Miss Cornfield encourages the children to secretly rehearse Ida's version, this does not solve the problems, because head bitch Helene (Emilia Pieske) snatches the lead role. Ida, who has also taken over the direction, wants someone completely different: Shy Anna-Lena (Lilith Johna), who would never dare to step into the limelight, even though she has a great voice! But she just doesn't want to jeopardize her "friendship" with Helene. Only through her magical animal, chameleon Caspar (voiced by Rick Kavanian), can she jump over her shadow. All good? No: because Ida also has a row with Jo (Loris Sichrovsky), whom Helene wants to win over with all her tricks. Jo's magic animal, the cocky penguin Juri (voiced by Axel Stein), completely throws the trio into chaos with his "support". When mysterious holes appear night after night in the schoolyard, the school festival is threatened with cancellation. Now it's up to the children and their magical animals to save the performance. But they need one thing above all: teamwork!

The first film version of the popular book series by Margit Auer was the most successful German movie last year. So of course it was only a matter of time before "The School of Magical Animals 2" hit theaters. The content of the story is based on the second volume of the novel series, but it also goes its own way again and again, so that even children who have read the book will still be surprised here. Otherwise, the production adheres closely to the successful recipe of Part 1: There is a lot of humor, lots of magic (which is served with a not exactly subtle portion "Harry Potter"-feeling) and of course new songs that go immediately into the ear.

Both the humor and the suspenseful moments are implemented in a very targeted manner. This means that the gags are kept rather simple, but work very well for children. And when it does get a bit more exciting, it's never so exciting that very young fans of the magical animals could really get scared. Especially the children who already read the books are really well taken care of here.

With the new magical animals, especially chameleon Caspar quickly grows fond of the audience. With a lot of cordiality and his wisdom, he helps his human, the shy Anna-Lena, to finally step out of the shadow of the conceited Helene. Penguin Juri, on the other hand, is with his exaggerated coolness at the beginning a bit exhausting and not exactly sympathetic, but fortunately this changes in the course of the film.

Surely: "The school of magical animals 2" is really only what for children. On adults - unlike what was the case, for example, with "Harry Potter" - the magic is difficult to transfer. But when you see how the children follow the new adventures of Ida, Jo and Co. with shining eyes and happily dance and sing along to the songs, then any criticism is superfluous - however justified it may be. Therefore applies: For fans of the books and the first film an absolute must and therefore also absolutely worth seeing!

An article by Frankfurt-Tipp