Louis and the Aliens – Luis & the Aliens (2018)

Directed by: Christoph Lauenstein, Wolfgang Lauenstein, Sean McCormack | 82 minutes | animation, adventure | Original voice cast: Callum Maloney, Dermot Magennis, Ian Coppinger, Paul Tylak, Lucy Carolan, Eoin Daly, Aileen Mythen, Simon Toal, Danna Davis, Susie Power, Eoin McCormick, Oisin Murray, Will Forte, Franciska Friede, Lea Thompson, Rebecca Whitman

Thirty years ago, German twin brothers Christophe and Wolfgang Lauenstein won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film with ‘Balance’ (1989). After that it was quiet for a long time, at least on the film plane. In the meantime, the Lauenstein brothers made dozens of animated commercials for small and large companies; they were allowed to count Coca Cola, Nike and Smarties among their customers. Nearly three decades later, the Lauenstein brothers return to the film world. ‘Louis and the Aliens’ (2018) is their first full-length feature film and should be the start of a new animation empire. They won’t break any pots with this film and they shouldn’t expect a lot of prizes either, ‘Louis and the aliens’ is too ordinary and too colorless for that. But for the target group – children aged six to twelve – there is plenty to do.

Louis is a lonely boy. He doesn’t have many friends at school and is regularly the bully of Marlon. The only person who normally interacts with him is Jennifer, the reporter for the school newspaper. At home, Louis isn’t much better off. His father, Armin Sonntag, is so obsessed with the universe, UFOs and extraterrestrial life that he has no regard for his son. During the day he sleeps on the couch, in the evening he scans the universe through his telescope for evidence that there is life on other planets. Louis no longer has a mother. The household largely comes down to him. On his eleventh birthday, he has to bake a birthday cake himself; his father doesn’t even know it’s his birthday, so he doesn’t have to count on a present either. The school principal realizes that Louis is being left to his own devices and calls in youth care. This is represented by the peculiar Mrs Diekendakker, who locks up lonely and neglected children in her boarding school. Louis naturally wants to prevent this at all costs and he receives help from an unexpected source. The three aliens Mog, Nag and Wabo interrupt their cruise across the galaxy for a trip to planet Earth to retrieve a TellSell multipurpose massage mat they saw passing by on television signals. The aliens have a special gift: they can take on the appearance of Earthlings via DNA. And that suits Louis quite well when the headmaster and Mrs. Diekendakker visit his parental home to see how he lives.

The joke is that the aliens, who call themselves ‘woopies’, may look like Earthlings but don’t quite know how they behave. Sooner or later they will of course still fall through the basket. The woopies are quite cuddly creatures, colorful and ‘blobby’, cheerful and approachable. The humor is mainly in the misunderstandings that arise when you release three aliens in a neat suburb. That not all aliens are so peaceful, Louis finds out by itself towards the end of the film, in a scene that may be a bit too intense for the most delicate children’s souls. ‘Louis and the aliens’ doesn’t stand out because of its originality, the animations are a bit wooden here and there, the characters look a bit uninspired and the voice cast is so solid that it leans against the boring. This is a film that neatly colors between the lines. You can’t really object to it, but this film doesn’t stick either. For adults there are few subtle winks hidden in it, but for the youth ‘Louis and the aliens’ is undoubtedly recognizable and entertaining enough. And for them, after all, this film was made.