The Crocodiles Strike Back (2010)

Surprisingly incoherent and boring

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

"Vorstadtkrokodile 2" is the second of three movies based on Max von der Grün's novel and the 1977 original film. The director is (just like for the first film) Christian Ditter. He did not return for the third and final movie though. Ditter also wrote the film with Neil Ennever. he worked with him on previous projects as well. Ditter did the Wickie sequel in the past and a couple "Türkisch für Anfänger" episodes and most recently he made a UK movie with Lily Collins and has another one with her and Dakota Johnson coming up. The producer duo are Lena Olbrich and Christian Becker who have already worked on several very well-known German movies. I guess the first film was commercially successful enough, so they decided to make another. Just like the first, it runs for roughly 90 minutes. I personally would not say it is much worse than the first, but this is mostly because the first one already wasn't particularly well done. Neither is this one here.You could probably say it is a bit more grown up than the last. Topics like first love, kissing, unemployment and economy fraud are included and also the action is a bit more "severe" like the explosion at the end. Sadly, there is embarrassing fart humor again as well and none of the dialog-based jokes are witty. The younger cast is pretty much the same as in the first. And they start right away with some drama and action as they are on an adventure that includes an unstable wooden bridge. Also most of the adult cast return: rapper Smudo, Nora Tschirner and Maria Schrader are back on board and Esther Schweins and "Tatort" police detective Dietmar Bär join the team. In the first part, the main antagonists were a bunch of criminal young guns, here it is a similar scenario, only that the real crime boss is a grown up (and surprisingly (?)) a possible love interest to the main character's mother. Also, there is a bitchy, superficial young woman who finally ends up as a friend to the gang. The main character is played by Nick Romeo Reimann. He switched from the "Wilde Kerle" movies to here and I don't see much acting talent in him. Most of the other kids played their parts better.Neither the drama nor the comedy or the adventure wowed me here. They tried so hard to make it relevant again. The first film was about tolerance and acceptance of disabilities. So, they thought why not re-use some of the old aspects ("Krüppel" insults) and include a stuttering kid to draw a parallel. Did not work out though. The music is not very good either. The main theme is fine, the rest of the songs is forgettable to downright bad (the Virginia Jetzt! one). Not recommended. Utter racket with no soul.

It' agreeable to find this accomplished sequel to the German kid flick has production values that would sustain adult entertainment - good pacing, convincing staging and engaging cast.Much juggling to give all the members of the gang attention, with blond kung-fu baby sitter Gollmer coming off best. Attempt at significance, with a computer criminal closing down the factory that the area depends on, till thwarted by the crocodile gang fresh from a previous anti crime operation.High contrast colour camera-work and extensive use of studio and location give a professional finish.