Mach, Šebestová a kouzelné sluchátko

An incredible patchwork that butchers in a shameful way the magic of a cartoon series. The title song raised my blood pressure, and it just got worse from there. Unfortunately, this is what directorial senility looks like - a story hastily slapped together, lousy dialogues, bland characters, a completely sterile concept... It's only because of some of the gags and decent adult actors that it's more or less watchable. The only thing that can be said about the child actors is that Jára Cimrman, as the inventor of the living wood, would be a mess from this. I have no idea if the film has succeeded for children, maybe I just don't have a naïve enough perspective to appreciate it... It's certainly not good, that I guarantee. (2004.05.28)

I was willing to buy into the resulting shape of Little Witch on a Broomstick, but this didn’t have similar production shit to deal with, so I see no reason to tolerate anything about it. The live-action version of the popular Born series doesn't work in any respect. There are a billion actors, a billion ideas that don't fit together, and the whole thing looks worse than if it were an early post-revolutionary spasm. Less could have been more. All it really needed was a little extra and it could have been a relaxing family spectacle. That’s too bad. (2013.12.04)

I am not the target audience, and fortunately, I did not see the film when it premiered, but as luck would have it, I found it recorded on tape, so I could later confirm that I once again wasted a piece of my life. It was already apparent earlier that Václav Vorlíček has lost a significant portion of his good reputation in favor of cheap money-making. This film is so desperately awkward, lazy, condescending, and cheap in both senses of the word that it is not worth wasting time with it. It is wiser to return to proven animated classics. For me, this is the bottom of Vorlíček's work and proof that he is losing his sanity in his old age. Overall impression: 10%. (2009.10.07)