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As Good As It Gets

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

"Das Zauberbuch" or "Kouzelný mesec" or "The Magic Book" is a Czech/German co-production from 1996, so this one had its 20th anniversary last year and there's also versions out in both production languages, so your choice which one to pick if you wanna pick any at all. Maybe the more known version is the one in the Czech language as here in Germany the film is extremely unknown in my opinion. These 85 minutes may look like a fairy tale for the most part, but it is no version of an old story or anything as this one was written by Jarka Kovaríková and she also adapted her own story shortly afterward. This she did together with Václav Vorlícek, the film's director and he is most known for "Tri orísky pro Popelku", another fantasy film that is turning into a classic a bit more every year it feels. But sadly, this one we are talking about today is not even near the level of the 1970s film I just mentioned. This may also have to do with the fact that the young Tina Ruland will only have your eyes glued to the screen because of her looks (if at all) and not because of her talent or range. The name Ruland is still fairly familiar here in Germany today and there are more German(-speaking) actors in here that you may have come across in other projects. These would be Uwe Ochsenknecht of course, but also Max Tidof and Kurt Weinzierl. I cannot really say anything about the Czech cast members, but I am sure there are some names in here too that are known still today in the Czech Republic.As a whole, the film was not really working too well I must say. The romance part never really gut me rooting for anybody and if this is really a comedy as IMDb says, then it's not a funny one. In the center of it all is of course the fantasy component and this was handled in an okay manner too on some occasions, but the longer the film went the messier it got. It was just too many characters and too few of them got a decent elaboration. The elements were all there, also costume-wise, but it felt like a puzzle with too many pieces and some not fitting in at all. Besides, the acting did not really impress me and this does not only refer to Ruland who I honestly would not have expected in a film like this with her being the Manta girl in the 1990s too. So yeah, overall the magic is missing for me here, the movie magic that is even more crucial in fantasy and fairy tale films than in other genres. I need to give it a thumbs-down. The title sounds definitely more interesting than the film turns out. Not recommended.