User Reviews

"Pettersson und Findus 2 - Das schönste Weihnachten überhaupt" is a German(-language) film from 2016 and this one is a pretty new release in cinemas. It is a sequel to "Pettersson und Findus - Kleiner Quälgeist, große Freundschaft" and really only to this one, not to the other P&F films listed on IMDb. These two movies were directed by Ali Samadi Ahadi and Thomas Springer adapted the original work from Sven Nordqvist for the screen here. In both movies, Roxana Samadi gives the cat title character her voice. And both films have Marianne Sägebrecht and Max Herbrechter play supporting characters. The human protagonist (Pettersson), however, is not played by the same actor. Swiss actor Stefan Kurt takes over from Ulrich Noethen for this sequel here. I personally must say I preferred Noethen, but Kurt is still pretty solid I guess. Anyway, the Pettersson character is really not for great acting, but he's all about the costume and about the connection with Findus. The latter is described in the first film as a "Quälgeist", which you could maybe translate as "little nuisance" and yeah I guess this description is pretty accurate. Sadly, to me, there was absolutely nothing likable about Findus the way he is depicted in here. He is an animated cat and the rest of the film is live action. I personally found Findus acted like a little spoilt kid that always complains about everything and causes havoc all the time. Poor Pettersson who has to deal with this cat all day long. As for the film here, I think Herbrechter is the most fun and clearly a scene stealer that deserves a much higher rating than I give this film overall. He was great fun with his character and especially his voice work, but a bit is also due to how he was written. Unfortunately, this character is really almost the only aspect I liked about the film in terms of writing. The rest is nothing special at all and does not stand out from the mass of kids films these days and I guess only very small children can be really entertained by this. This is a bit sad as I quite liked the idea of centering the film around the topic of letting others help you instead of the generic message of helping others that has been done way too many times. But unfortunately, the lack of love to detail also results in the film coming short with regard to the central message eventually. The music is as forgettable as Sägebrecht's performance (maybe most known actor in here) and her only fun scene comes very early on with the gingerbread she keeps eating. All in all, this film is as weak as the first one from over 2.5 years earlier and if you ask me, there should not be a third film coming out at some point. I don't recommend the watch.

Watched this with my seven year old daughter. Animation looks cheap, jokes are not funny. And, worst of all, the cat is doing everything to ruin the holidays, constantly whining, always making a mess. Seems like Findus is deliberately mocking Pettersson and the old guy is too kind or too dumb to do something about it and put that spoilt cat in its place.