Sammy-Jo Cervantes
There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.
justarrivedfromhell
Some words about the plot - little boy called Ruudi, who is a great viking fan, wants go aboard a viking ship in a fair, but one of the actors persuading as vikings tells him that he wont get aboard without his father, but little Ruudi's father left him before he was even born. Because Ruudi still wants to ride in the viking boat he decides to start a Father Competition. The winner would get him, his mother and hidden viking treasure (because nobody would take part in it if there wouldn't be any money). There are also the usual fools who also want the treasure, but not trough the competition ...I'd say that the plot may be special in some way, but overall it's pretty much the usual taking-out-tears sort of stuff, only without the tears. There are some dull moments, what just have to be in there because it's for the whole family. I think that family movies are pretty hard to make, because you have to make them easy enough for the little ones to understand, but still enough exciting for the grown-ups. Ruudi has its simple taste and jokes for make a young audience to laugh and bring a flicker of smile on adult faces after all those clichés.Actors were majorly pretty good, at least on the adults part, but the children were kinda numb. The worst were Paul Oskar Soe and Mairo Ainsar. In threatening scenes neither ones faces moved, I heard absolutely no emoticons in Mairo's voice, when he threatened to beat Ruudis face in. I should have been afraid because of poor Ruudi, but i just thought it was funny. And Soe wasn't much better - when his face was hanging on line it was still as cold as always with no fear or nothing. Little children aren't usually like that, at least not the ones who have enough courage to start something like Father Competition. Juta Altmets wasn't that bad, from the three of them she was the best. Her character had some emoticons and truth. But the most I liked the Langeberg twins, who were Music was something what goes good only while watching the movie. At the after party it was terrible and made ones head really ache. Only 2 songs were worth listening. One was Toe Tags "Pankrot", but, well, it wasn't made for the movie, I think it was added because it was popular in Estonia at that time and it adds some cool feeling to the movie. At least it shows a bit the impact of country life, what seems old, and new "cool" town culture, where that kind of rap music is accepted. The other song was "Valge tuvi" aka "White dove", what was cool in its own old way. Its performance just added to the movie and actually raised my vote.So, if you like children movies and would like to see a glance to Estonia and country life I'd suggest it to you, but if you're looking to something Oscar worth piece full of action or smth like that it's not for you. But for kids ...
