| Famous Five | |
| Producer: | Andreas Ulmke-Smeaton Ewa Karlström |
| Starring: | Valeria Eisenbart Quirin Oettl Justus Schlingensiepen Neele Marie Nickel Coffey the Dog Armin Rohde Sebastian Gerold Johann von Bülow Anja Kling Michael Fitz Anatole Taubman Anna Böttcher Elyas M'Barek Alwara Höfels |
| Music: | Wolfram de Marco |
| Cinematography: | Bernhard Jasper |
| Editing: | Tobias Haas |
| Distributor: | Constantin Film |
| Runtime: | 93 minutes |
| Country: | Germany |
| Language: | German |
Famous Five (German: link=no|Fünf Freunde) is a 2012 German children's film. Directed by, it is a film adaptation of The Famous Five series by Enid Blyton, which is based primarily on the 1947 book Five on Kirrin Island Again.
Siblings Julian, Dick and Anne travel to their uncle Quentin's house. Quentin is preparing to travel to Kirrin Island ("Felseninsel") to concentrate on his research.
Georgina "George" Kirrin, Quentin's daughter, is forced to go cycling with her cousins and decides to take them to the "Teufelsfelsen" (Devil's Rock). En route, she has a race with Julian and wins by cheating. She leaves and cycles to the harbour to say goodbye to her father.
At Teufelsfelsen, the siblings hear a dog barking and, ignoring a sign that says "stay out, dangerous," enter a cave. Julian spots the dog, Timmy, at the bottom of a hole and climbs down to recue him. With a rope, Dick and Anne try to pull Julian up but cannot hold his weight. They nearly drop him when George appears and helps them pull. Timmy is banned from George's house, as he accidentally destroyed parts of Quentin's work and now lives with neighbour Mrs. Miller.
Together, they examine the cave and find a radio transmitter with a voice distortion device. They listen and answer to someone about a "professor." They realize that someone is after Quentin.At the police station, they convince officers Peters and Hansen to accompany them to the cave. Inside, the radio is gone, and there is no evidence that there ever was one. The children get a fine for illegally entering. George is blamed of this by her mother but defended by the others who decide to share the blame.
Meanwhile, Quentin is secretly developing a technique to produce electricity with plants. The friends decide to unmask the people threatening him.The next morning, they sneak out of the house to investigate the cave. En route, Anne notices someone installing a camera to spy on Kirrin Island.
He turns out to be Peter Turner, an agent from a European secret service.His agency is surveilling Quentin, who refuses to receive help from them. While investigating the cave, Turner is attacked.Examining a piece of paper Dick picked up in the cave earlier, George finds the imprint of a signature. To find its author, they plan to get a signature from everyone in the village and compare it with the one they have.
While collecting signatures for a fake ecological campaign, Anne learns that a couple of birdwatching aficionados wants to visit Kirrin Island. After failing to have found matching signatures, the friends investigate the couple, whose hovercraft can bring them to Kirrin Island. The couple also has a pocketbook the children have seen in the cave earlier.
While George and Anne distract the couple, Julian and Dick get on the vehicle to sabotage it. Accidentally, they start the hovercraft and crash, destroying it. The couple, however, are real bird watchers and not criminals.
Because of this, the siblings' father orders them to go home.Later, George reads the fine they got for illegally entering the cave and realizes that Hansen's signature is the one the friends were looking for.
The next morning, Hansen enters the cave. George and Timmy follow him into an undersea tunnel that leads to Kirrin Island. At Quentin's lab, George finds her father captured by Peters.
Peters and Hansen set the friends on the wrong track so that they suspected the bird watchers. Hansen captures George, and Quentin promises to surrender his invention if they promise not to hurt her. George is locked up with Turner in a cell under the lab, while Timmy flees and chases the bus carrying the siblings home. The trio see Timmy and stop the bus, realising that George is in danger.
In the lab, Peters and Hansen force Quentin to copy all of his data onto their hard-drive. Following Timmy, the siblings get to George's cell. Together, the Five then subdue Hansen. Peters destroys Quentin's computer but gets trapped by the Five, who lock him up with Hansen.
Mrs. Miller, who appears on the island, is actually Hansen and Peters's boss. She activates a bomb's timer and locks the Five up with Hansen and Peters, not willing to share profits with anybody.
Aided by Turner, the friends defuse the bomb. Timmy retrieves the hard-drive and is allowed to stay in the house. The criminals are brought to prison by Turner, who promises that his agency will compensate the bird watchers for their troubles. When asked how he should call them in his report, the children announce themselves as the Famous Five.
Most parts of the movie were filmed in Schleswig, Germany, in summer 2011. Marcus Harris, the actor of Julian in the 1970s TV series The Famous Five, plays a concierge. Its premiere was on 26 January 2012 in Munich and a second in Schleswig, few days later. The film was invited to the 2012 TIFF Kids International Film Festival in Toronto.[1]