The Secret of Mega Mindy (2009)

Directed by: Matthias Temmermans | 70 minutes | family, crime, adventure | Actors: Free Souffriau, Louis Talpe, Nicky Langley, Fred Van Kuijk, Anton Cogen, Yolanthe Cabau van Kasbergen, Tom Van Dyck, Manou Kersting, Walter Baele

Anyone who has never heard of Mega Mindy has been living under a rock since 2006, or has no children and/or has never had anything to do with children. Those are the conditions under which it is possible that you have seen a girl with such a pink mask or even an entire outfit or have never heard anyone sing the song from the TV series. After that popular TV series came a musical and now there is, how could it be otherwise, a movie. And not a bad one.

To please your kids, you probably can’t pass this one up. And oh well, then let yourself be briefly, but powerfully entertained with a high Bassie and Adriaan quality. What does that mean? Crooks wear black and white suits (really!) or dark outfits, have big mustaches and are stupid, except of course their leader, in this case a woman. Women, on average, come off better than the men in terms of intelligence and heroism in this film, although Agent Toby still makes up for the ‘stronger sex’ a bit at the end.

If you want to be surprised by an inventive, creative children’s movie, you’d better stay home or go somewhere else, though. It is also just a longer version of the series, although the film still has some revelations in store, which would mean the end of the series, were it not for the fact that a good solution has been found technically, cleverly written!

You don’t have to surprise children, on the contrary, once they like something, you can apparently continue to feed them. And they apparently know exactly what they like at Studio 100, where they have clearly looked closely at Disney, judging by their leaders alone. All their programs, such as Mega Mindy, Kabouter Plop and Piet Piraat, turn to gold. Perhaps they have also read the right books on marketing, because they know how to flood the market with related products, which are eagerly sought by the young target group. There are now even several, well-run theme parks around the figure of Kabouter Plop!

You could of course start a discussion about the far too simple and stereotypical world view that is being presented here, or the fact that little is left to the creative imagination of the child, or that solutions are very banal. You could also ask yourself whether children like this all so much because it is really very good, or because the makers just know how to wrap the new consumers around their finger. But that’s all adult talk of course.

Kids do like this. For more than an hour they are under the pans and they are treated to entertainment today: with beautiful colors and high quality; everything has been carefully portrayed and the atmosphere that is created has international (read: Hollywood-like) allure, which is meant as a compliment. The story is formulaic, but in any case according to a working formula and slides in nicely, like a well-made apple pie, with a thick layer of whipped cream. And here and there there is still something to laugh about, even for adults. What do you call this? High quality tailor-made entertainment, no more, no less.