This is one of those kid's movies that is either a) charming, imaginative and original, or b) disturbing enough to scar you for life. Either way it's well worth a look. There's some Norwegian cultural touchstones that make me believe it's taken from source material well known in it's homeland, but works at face value level as well. The storyline involves Simon, a kid with 2 expressions and a magic teddy bear, whose Grandfather seems to be getting very sick. "Of loneliness" diagnoses the kid at every opportunity. At the urging of the frankly creepy teddy, Simon ingests a magic potion and shrinks himself down to go and help Grandpa. Once inside, he hooks up with Mapster the young white blood cell & cute piece of lung matter, Alvaoli. Together they skip through grandpa's gnarly innards meeting such characters as the Secretions Agent and Bile Duct, the bad tempered head of the gall bladder department, while they try to stop the evil Calcium Crystals who are building a stone in Grandpa's bladder. The sets and costumes in this movie are impressively designed, even if worryingly skewed towards the rubber fetishistic crowd and the effects are pretty good too. (Favourite moment was the Secretion Agent's 'wanted poster') And for those with the bent for the absurd this movie's worth a look for nothing else than the costumes and interesting look at how our bodies are put together (my appendix is WHERE?) Best watched if: under 12 or drunk.
6 Reviews
Clever kids film about a Fantastic Voyage into a persons body to put it right
dbborroughs12 December 2005
A little kid who lives with his grandfather shrinks himself, with the aid of his teddy bear, in order to go inside his grandfather's body to see whats making him ill. With the help of two "people" he meets on the inside he sets about making his grandfather well.
Sue me I really liked this movie. I have no idea why I should have warmed to this kids film but I did. Perhaps its the design (which is just neat to look at) and the sense that there is something behind the story beyond just being a live action Osmosis Jones for kids (it is very clever a good deal of the time). This is a kids film that just tells its story and so it becomes something more than just a kids film.
No, its not perfect. I find the talking teddy bear oddly done, the real world stuff just misses and the pacing is off, I'd have liked it move not so much faster as differently, the rhythm seems off somehow. Still I liked it. I'd give it a 6.5 myself, with a 6 for the IMDb since in many ways its better in the parts than as a whole.
Definitely worth trying if you run across the film, especially if you are open to good, but not great kids films with really cool looks to them.
Sue me I really liked this movie. I have no idea why I should have warmed to this kids film but I did. Perhaps its the design (which is just neat to look at) and the sense that there is something behind the story beyond just being a live action Osmosis Jones for kids (it is very clever a good deal of the time). This is a kids film that just tells its story and so it becomes something more than just a kids film.
No, its not perfect. I find the talking teddy bear oddly done, the real world stuff just misses and the pacing is off, I'd have liked it move not so much faster as differently, the rhythm seems off somehow. Still I liked it. I'd give it a 6.5 myself, with a 6 for the IMDb since in many ways its better in the parts than as a whole.
Definitely worth trying if you run across the film, especially if you are open to good, but not great kids films with really cool looks to them.
It's a very unusual set...
Qwicke23 August 1999
It's very unusual, especially for a not-Hollywood-production to have these kinds of sets. A large amount of money must have been spent on creating the fascinating sets inside the body.
Some parts reminded me of a movie seen at biology lectures in school but this is a whole lot of more fun to it. If you get the chance of seeing it - do so!
Some parts reminded me of a movie seen at biology lectures in school but this is a whole lot of more fun to it. If you get the chance of seeing it - do so!
"There HAS TO BE MAGIC...there just HAS to be"
jjessup9716 February 2014
Warning: Spoilers
BRILLIANT from start to finish. Utterly gorgeous and sublimely weird as if someone combined The Wizard Of Oz, Fantastic Voyage & A Matter Of Life & Death. The worst part of the film was the realization it had been out for almost two decades before I discovered by on accident on Neflix.
I knew Chasing The Kidneystone was something special when I was confronted with a bitter anthropomorphic teddy bear with definitive ideas of magic grousing about being replaced by a chemistry set. Despite his anguish he does what all good bears do for their humans...he helps. Simon gets a dose of magic potion to help him go inside his ailing grandfather to try to help him get better.
The scenes inside grandpa are DELECTABLE starting with the grabby taste buds who cant decide if he is bitter or sweet so they use their phone to call the Cerebral Nerve Center who is already overwhelmed with calls from other parts of the body and not too keen on taking silly questions from taste buds.
The costumes and cinematography are luscious and so sumptuous they are practically edible. It is a feast for your senses. So much glory for your eyes you will be rubbing them every 5 minutes and wondering if you are really seeing what you are seeing and also checking your tongue for acid residue because this movie is so unhinged and surreal you will think you took LSD. By the time you get to the love police standing guard at The Palace Of The Heart your whole world will explode with the wonder of what is possible.
This movie is for EVERYONE who believes in magic and light and love and beauty and shadows and imagination & it will pump CREATIVITY out of your ears like hormonal pterodactyls...wait I am sorry ENDORPHINS come out of your ears not hormones, oh well at least I got to say pterodactyls which doesn't come up in a lot of reviews you know, so count yourself lucky I could squeeze it in. I'd bring up halitosis dancing and a bilious fat phobic witch with an atomizer but don't want to spoil the adventure that comes with discovering this masterpiece for yourself.
Chasing the Kidneystone is beautiful & glorious and your life will be better by embracing it with your whole soul. It will be in the palace of my heart FOREVER.
I knew Chasing The Kidneystone was something special when I was confronted with a bitter anthropomorphic teddy bear with definitive ideas of magic grousing about being replaced by a chemistry set. Despite his anguish he does what all good bears do for their humans...he helps. Simon gets a dose of magic potion to help him go inside his ailing grandfather to try to help him get better.
The scenes inside grandpa are DELECTABLE starting with the grabby taste buds who cant decide if he is bitter or sweet so they use their phone to call the Cerebral Nerve Center who is already overwhelmed with calls from other parts of the body and not too keen on taking silly questions from taste buds.
The costumes and cinematography are luscious and so sumptuous they are practically edible. It is a feast for your senses. So much glory for your eyes you will be rubbing them every 5 minutes and wondering if you are really seeing what you are seeing and also checking your tongue for acid residue because this movie is so unhinged and surreal you will think you took LSD. By the time you get to the love police standing guard at The Palace Of The Heart your whole world will explode with the wonder of what is possible.
This movie is for EVERYONE who believes in magic and light and love and beauty and shadows and imagination & it will pump CREATIVITY out of your ears like hormonal pterodactyls...wait I am sorry ENDORPHINS come out of your ears not hormones, oh well at least I got to say pterodactyls which doesn't come up in a lot of reviews you know, so count yourself lucky I could squeeze it in. I'd bring up halitosis dancing and a bilious fat phobic witch with an atomizer but don't want to spoil the adventure that comes with discovering this masterpiece for yourself.
Chasing the Kidneystone is beautiful & glorious and your life will be better by embracing it with your whole soul. It will be in the palace of my heart FOREVER.
a trip
Kirpianuscus29 April 2017
a charming film. bizarre, off course, imaginative - certainly. but beautiful. and this is the basic virtue for this film for children, introduction to the human body, using a nice pretext, pure adventure in name of noble purpose. it is not simple for say why it remains seductive. maybe, for its high eccentricity or for the touching portrait of an expression of love from a nephew to his grandfather. for the costumes and dialogues. or, maybe, for the idea of a journey who has, in this case, original nuances. a dark film who seems be an experiment. and, maybe, this is all.
interesting
Vincentiu12 August 2014
an interesting movie. that is the basic word for define this strange/charming movie.a nephew , his grandparent, a bear and a lot of adventures. inspired sets, good script, courageous work. demonstration of high, rich imagination.the only problem is the target-public. it could be creepy for kids, unrealistic for adults, seductive for fans of fantasy. behind the beautiful images, for the remember of old basic values- the love and the friendship as great examples- it is a real useful film. not only as lesson about body and adventures and for its final but for the virtue of challenge. a special film. that could be the best word for define it.
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