Sadly Over-hyped

Please don't spend money on this.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

"Krokodil Gena" is a Soviet 20-minute animated movie by Roman Kachanov, the man behind the Cheburashka short films, a classic from the Golden Age of East European animation. This one still features a different title character, but this does not make it a worse watch at all in my opinion. I personally think it is on par with the sequels. The animation is not entirely my preferred choice of style, but it isn't bad either. If you like the style more than I do, you will probably really love this little film. There are some cute characters and scenes in here and the story generally has a decent amount of heart in it. Of course, if your mother tongue is not Russian, you may want to make sure you get a good set of subtitles. Watch it. I am positive you won't be disappointed.