Vicky the Viking is the newest movie of German film maker and comedian Michael Bully Herbig, based on the book by Runer Jonsson and the TV show of the same name.

Plot:
Vicky (Jonas Hämmerle) is the son of Halvar (Waldemar Kobus), chief of a village of Vikings. Halvar is a physical guy and one who measures strength through muscles. Vicky, on the other hand, is very smart but has to prove his father again and again that brains can meet muscles.
When all the children – including Vicky’s girlfriend Ylvi (Mercedes Jadea Diaz) – are kidnapped from their village (except for Vicky himself ), Vicky, his father and the men go out to rescue them.

Herbig put a lot of work into making this this live action movie resemble the animated original as much as possible and he succeeded with that. Unfortunately that also means that he transfered all the problems of the original. [And there are quite a few.] Also, his trademark humour is very much missing. I didn’t laugh as much as I expected.

It is amazing how much the movie resembles the original. In fact, Herbig did his own casting show on German TV to choose just the right men. Most of which are not professional actors. And that works perfectly. They resemble their drawn counterparts and the acting works fine.

That means that the more known actors –  Christoph Maria Herbst, Hannah Herzsprung and Herbig himself – are confined to the supporting roles. That’s totally fine, of course.

On to the problems… As I said above, they were all problems of the original. But unfortunately, in his attempt to recreate the show, Herbig didn’t stop to think about the problems it had, but just continued them in his movie.

While the general message of the show – brains are probably the most powerful muscels we have – is one I think is admirable and one I agree with. Unfortunately, the whole thing is caked in a thick, thick layer of sexism and racism.

The sexism probably won’t surprise anyone since it’s show about Vikings approximately 1200 years ago. But I can only reiterate: It is possible to write books/make movies/sing songs/… that play in a sexist society without them being sexist themselves.

And the racism is totally uncalled for. Aweful Sven (Günther Kaufmann), the evil one, is pretty much black. He is the only black person in this movie. Nobody asks how a black Viking would even be there. He’s just evil and therefore he’s black.

So summarising, copying without thinking is not a good idea. Generally speaking, if you are a die hard Vicky fan, you’re going to like it. If you expect something along the lines of Herbig’s earlier movies, you will be disappointed. And if you don’t know who Vicky is, it’s probably a good introduction to the series, but ultimately, it’s skipable.