Sorry to be blunt but that is the way it is. I have been reading these books ever since I was little and I love then to death. They have everything a good book has: humor, excitement, interesting characters and so on.
The idea of turning those books into a movie is a great idea. But unlike Peter Jackson who casted people who looked as they stepped right out of the books, Steven de Jong did not take similar care in this book.
Gerben Zonderland is a man I remember as a clever and intelligent person. Sure, he was scared in the dark and Sietse and Hielke as well as the other characters in the book often fooled him with practical jokes. But German was a prankster himself and a great story teller.
Maarten Spanjer exhibits none of those characteristics. No offense but he looks like a gullable fool and I see no resemblance with Gerben whatsoever. And to cast a man from Amsterdam as Gerben, well that is as if you an American boy play Harry Potter.
Joep Sertons is also miscasted as the doctor but he is only a minor character so that is not a real big problem.
And then comes the director's stint of arrogance. He casts himself as father Klinkhamer. But that man is a blacksmit and those are huge men with big muscular arms and all that. (One would have to be in that job.) Again the director does not live up to that. He more has the build of an ice skater.
And finally the director also changed the books and that is something I cannot forgive. Ester was never a part of the books. She should have been a boy named Cor who always visited his aunt and uncle during vacations.
He was featured in most of the early books but suddenly dissapeared and we never heard from him again. But such inconsistencies happened a few more times. A new boy came into town and befriended the cast. But the next book he was gone again.
Girls were not much in the books until one of the last books written by Hotze de Roos but one must remember that it was a different age back then. Being a history buff I love that and so the idea of "modernizing" the story by adding a girl is just plain wrong.
Another character from the books also did not make it in the movie. At first the cast in the books consisted of only Sietse, Hielke and Cor who went on boatrides in the "Kameleon" and then encountered other people such as Gerben and Zwart.
After a few books 2 more charcters were introduced to enable more storylines or possebilities: Louw Vrolijk and Kees Dijkstra. Louw was a pretty normal kid but Kees was really a "piece of work". Often up to no good and always in the mood for food.
So I can understand that he was a charater you would want in the movie. Technically he is not even supposed to be in it but of course from a commercial view he has to be.
But what about Louw? Is he supposed to banned from this movie? To be left out? He may not have been a chacter who was really definable such as Kees or Gerben but he was nevertheless a character in the book.
To see that Kees (whom I like a lot) has made the book but that Louw has been left out is another bad idea from the director.
So I am going to close with the statement that it could have been one of the greatest Dutch movies ever. The books were excellent so you got a good start. But sadly this movie is ruined by the people who made it.
Why else would a group of students make their own version of the books? I think that illustrates my point quite nicely.
