User Reviews

"Vildheks" or "Wildwitch" is a new co-production between several European countries that resulted in this Danish-language movie directed by Kaspar Munk. It runs for a bit over 1.5 hours and is based on a novel by Lene Kaaberbøl. Munk himself is one of three writers here adapting the original material and I find it pretty disappointing how so many worked on the script and how disappointing it all turned out. The first problem is really that there is zero comedy in here, zero light moments at all and it takes itself completely seriously from start to finish. But it has no right to do so. There are many inclusions that you could expect from a 100-million dollar budget fantasy epic really story-wise, but the talent is absolutely not there to make these work. i would not really include most of the cast here. They do their best with what they are given, but they do not shine exactly either. Besides, there are even some plot developments that do not make any sense. They put so much emphasis on how everybody is safe inside the area, but the girl lived outside the area for over a decade and yet nobody tried to harm her despite the evil forces knowing who her mother is. Well, these evil forces are basically one person only, a wicked witch named Chimera and she is so bad and powerful that she threatens to destroy the whole wild world, yet she cannot kill a single boy/cat, a single dog or a little girl who knows nothing about her powers at all. It just doesn't make any sense. Speaking about the boy/cat, it was obvious from the very start that he is the cat, so yeah extremely predictable plot twist that eventually feels pointless even. A lot more feels pointless, such as the man running around near the shack in the second half. What was his purpose? The moment the film hits rock bottom is when the two girls open the gate that leads them to the main antagonist. Their singing and the cringeworthy "I need to go alone" moment that followed were difficult to stomach. She says she cannot explain why she needs to go alone. Oh well.. we in the audience don't know either. Looking at how many animals are included in this movie, it is another example of quantity over quality, even if some of them were nice to watch, but the glowing lizards etc. just needed better stories revolving around them. And what was with the weird chinchilla scene. Or the ending, i.e. the very final scene. I think it was supposed to show us how she is not sticking with false friends anymore? I don't know. It was all very bizarred and not in a good way. A disappointing film given Denmark's quality generally. Don't watch. If you want to see an actually good with-themed film mostly for kids, go for the most recent German take on Preussler's "Die kleine Hexe" starrking karoline Herfurth. That one is superior to this one here from every perspective really.

Wild Witch is a beautifully photographed film set in gorgeous locations and is well acted. I haven't read the series from which the film is adapted, but it's pleasing to see this tries to be different from the Harry Potter stuff and I do like seeing the emphasis on a predominantly female cast. I can also appreciate this is not a special effects extravaganza, though there were instances, particularly in the third act, when an attempt may well have been made to ramp up the action a bit more with some CGI, other than copious amounts of smoke (black or white).

I do agree with other reviewers who have issues with the narrative. It just doesn't play out all that smoothly. Oscar barely has a word to say after the first act and just keeps gazing off into the distance every time he's spoken to. Their relationship just never seems to go anywhere. If he's Clara's protector and the same age, how did he develop his powers and why don't we ever actually see them really displayed? How come there is never any discussion about fathers? For instance, whose Clara's father and why doesn't he have any role to play in the scheme of things? BTW, who was that older guy, who stood around Isa's house quite a bit, but hardly said anything? Why did Clara's mum say at one stage, I'm going to take her home because this is too dangerous and yet in the next scene, they're both chilling out back at Isa's place, not heading home at all? I agree with others as well, in that the ending was pretty anti-climactic and ho-hum.

Wild Witch is quite engaging thematically with the aspects about animals and the environment. But if the producers were looking at starting some sort of Wild Witch franchise, they'd need to be fronting up with a stronger product than this.

I was really looking forward to see this adaptation of one of my favorite book series and it just completely fell through. As the viewer we do not get a change to connect with any of the characters because of the quick walktrough of the story and at the end we do not feel any different for any of the characters. All the scenes are passing by with no break. You do not get to engage in the plot because of the runtime of 1 h 30 min. And as a big fan of the 6 books I was even confused about what was going on. They went trough the plot of the 6 books in 1,30min and they were missing a lot of the storyline that makes you fall in love with this fantastic univers. In the end it felt like you were watching a completely different film. As for some positive comments the visual was very surprising in a good way, and it was awesome the way the film crew executed it. The way they brought Kimæra to life, it was fantastic to watch, she looked like what I imagined when I read the books. Also all the locations in nature were beautifully used and it made the film more "authentic".

I really did not like that Oscar Clara's best friend was also the cat and her protector. It was not necessary at all. The only reason they wanted it to be that way was because they wanted the viewers to know that Clara had a friend. Oscar does play a more vital role in the books. So that was on of the more specific plot dispamointments in the film.